Firstly, apologies for using a non standard way of showing a game. I have an absolute dinosaur of a PC- Windows 98 with no internet connection and the DVD burner on it gave up long ago. So I did it the old fashioned way and took a film of my computer Go game and uploaded via a friends PC! I think has enough visual clarity to show what is happening.

Currently I use some freeware programs to play Go. They're enough for my level at the moment.

I've been playing the 9x9 version of Go for the past few months to practice, mainly keeping an eye of good eye shapes. I got the courage to do 19 x 19 version recently.

So I picked up some tips from reading most of Go For Beginners by Kaoru Iwamoto. It definitely helped! I don't profess to be much more than a beginner, but I paid attention to opening shimari, keeping groups alive, abandoning obviously lost stones, avoiding false eyes, and there are some ko fights toward the later part.

The game is currently unfinished, but I got so impatient I just wanted some advice! Any advice on how to conduct the rest of the game would help too!

I started the game as Black....

http://www.filedropper.com/cel70gogame

It's a small file, about 30 MB. I might be playing absolutely terribly, but then, that's a good way to learn. I was pretty useless at chess at first, but after some years of studying chess books and getting a strong player to critique my games, I improved greatly.

Hi cel70,

Welcome.

May I suggest: the next time you're on your friend's computer,
download and install MultiGo -- it's freeware and I've been using it for years on Windows.

You can download it -- Here .

After you have MultiGo running on your friend's computer,
you can record and edit your game there.
Then, post the SGF text here on the forum.

( At your level, I recommend you finish 100 games -- if you haven't done so already. )

245, 249, 257 -- These 3 moves are very strange.
If you play B19 on 245, you keep your 4 points locally: C19, D19, E19, and J19.
But your 3 moves above KILLED your own 4 points, completely voluntarily by yourself, un-forced.
Even at the last moment, if you play B19 on 257, you still keep 2 points here: ( C19 and J19 ).

Perhaps you were so excited you thought J19 is a false eye, so everything to the left of it automatically became worthless.

Your game:

Hi cel70,

About your moves 245, 249, and 257 --
I'm not sure what's the source of the confusion;
but here's an example: can you see Black has 4 points locally:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ +----------------------
$$ | . X . X . X . X O . .
$$ | X X X O X X X X O . .
$$ | O O O O O O O O O . .
$$ | . O . O . . . . . . .
$$ | O O O . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

My guess is the shapes of (x) and (y) look like false eyes to you,
so they confused you:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ +----------------------
$$ | . X x X y X . X O . .
$$ | X X X O X X X X O . .
$$ | O O O O O O O O O . .
$$ | . O . O . . . . . . .
$$ | O O O . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Thanks! Yes, that critique helps a lot. Obviously I've still a lot to learn, but I enjoy the learning process of complex games. Still, I think I've improved some in the last six months, since before I assumed false eyes weren't that important!

Regarding 245, and 249 in retrospect I think I was in the Area coring mindset where the number of stones on the board counts towards you

It depends on the particular situation.