I played this game against an 18k beginner on KGS. My 4th game against a human opponent. I was quite happy I stayed within 80 points this time.

I'm looking for some general hints. I really had no control of the middle.

I'm also curious whether my group on the left was dead.

Thanks!

Hello! Let's take a look. I'm not going to try and tear your game apart, because I don't want to overload you with ideas. If I manage to catch you on KGS sometime, we could doa teaching game, though. It might be more useful than a wall of text about this particular game.

A couple comments about the group on the left side (if you have questions, about this shape or just in general about the game, just ask; I'm not going to go into much detail because I'm not sure what questions you might have):

- A move on the first line should always be questioned. Compare this to ... I'd personally rather be moving out towards the center, so I think you should have played D13 yourself.

- Another first line move to pick on. is where you might want to play instead. The key here is to avoid a dead shape (in this case "Bulky Five"). You can still live in seki if you had played B8 instead of A9. (Please note, W is dead now, not seki as claimed in the comments at the end of the game).

Thanks for the tip about the first line! That's the kinda simple yet important thing that I was looking for.

A teaching game would certainly be useful!

I was confused about the left group's life or death. Once he plays the stone in the middle of my group, how should I react so that I can score points rather than lose that base/seki?

Here's an SGF I put together for kicks. Maybe it's useful, or maybe not. Anyways, let me know if this helps at all, or is just confusing ...

I've added some comments in the file below. Here are my biggest suggestions:

- Don't start invading until all the big, open sides are claimed. It's fine to let your opponent have a big territory if you can make a bigger one.

- In life-and-death fights, expanding your eyespace should be your #1 priority. For example, at move 80, you tried to seal two black stones in - it would've been much better to expand your eye space with B8.

- Related to the last point: You seem to play solid extensions in a lot of places where a diagonal move could work (see my comments on moves 18 and 110 for examples of what I mean). It requires a little reading, because you need to check that your opponent can't cut it, but it can give you an advantage when it works.

- You're walking away from some fights that should still be fought (see moves 36 and 68). To be honest, this is really a judgement call - sometimes it's right to walk away, if a fight can't be won. The only real suggestion I can give you here is to play lots of games, and eventually you'll learn to judge which fights can still be won, and which will only make your opponent stronger. When in doubt, fight it out - even if you can't read all the variations, that's OK, because your opponent probably can't either. Even if you lose, you'll learn something in the process. If you don't try the fight, you'll never know.


To answer your question about the left group, it's definitely dead at the end of the game. Black can kill it at A12.
The situation at move 25 is a LOT more complicated. I, um, got a little carried away exploring all the variations, way beyond what I would actually be able to read in my head. The tree gets kind of messy. The good news is, I don't think black can kill you at that point (but anyone can feel free to correct my analysis )

Very cool analysis, thank you!

Ko fights can be fun and profitable. And in a close game, a single point may be important.

It wasn't worth enough to win, unless black goofed, but as an endgame move, you might have wanted to play J4. Black can't connect the J3 stone, because they need to protect the cutting point at H6. (If black goofed and played H3, you could play H6 for a double atari and break into the middle.)

You would win the ko fight. (It would have been worth 2 points to play J4 before black: one for the black prisoner, one for the point of territory black would have had at H3.)

Your shapes are mostly safe and solid. Black has lots of ko threats available! I see four good ones. (There would have been five if either of you had filled A19.)

If you want, try to find the ko threats!

Thanks! I know Ko fights but I need a lot more practice to get good at them and to see them haha!