So this is my first post on the site. I'm a new player (just started in September) and I really enjoy the game. I'd love for anyone to make any comments on my game.

One thing I know I have problems with is when my opponent and I are running to the edge of the board and I'm blocking him but leaving cutting points. I've gotten burned once or twice close to the edge of the board where I left a cutting point that allowed him to take a small group of two or three stones that I was using to block. So I've become a little overcautious in those situations. I think I'm not playing those situations the best way possible.

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Welcome to L19 btw!

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Okay, I think I've got it working now.

Hey, good to meet ya. Just a few thoughts:

15: You can't possibly get too many points on the first or second lines. This early in the game, it's only worth doing first- or second-line plays when it stabilizes or unstabilizes an important group. Both groups in question seem like they're fine for the moment, so try looking around for 'bigger' moves. For example, with this group, you could either achieve better stability with M3 (which gets your group a base and attacks the middle white stone) or you could atari with Q6. Q6 starts to severely threaten to lock the white group into the corner. (Assuming this happened) While this would give your opponent somewhere around 10-15 points depending, that would be like he's asking for a refund on a winning lottery ticket: sure, he's going to get a little cash in hand, but you'd have a lot more to look forwards to.
19: The first line is like the second, but even slower/less important
25: Remember when I said that playing on the second line is fine if it keeps a group weak or stabilizes your own? This does both, so it's fine.
27: This, on the other hand, does not stabilize or weaken much, so it's not worth doing. Your opponent should have ignored this to play somewhere else. Small moves like this are kind of like sneaking into your opponent's camp at night to spraypaint graffiti on his tanks. While you win a minor moral victory, it's not going to help much in the big fighting later, and your time would be better spent doing other things.
29: Good! Make sure you defend the cutting point at P6 in the future, but this is a good start.
35: Good that you're defending cutting points, but you can slide in T7 first, I think. If white doesn't defend, you can play S5 to kill two stones, which also seems at a glance to also kill the whole corner. T7 would be small if it didn't threaten a lot, but because of how scary it is for white, you can get it for free. Does this make sense? It's the concept of sente: if you play a move that makes your opponent defend, you get to keep the initiative and play wherever you want, anyways.
91: Your opponent is playing threats that don't work. You can safely play O7 here.
147: Good idea, but the wrong side. You're trying to break into the east side a bit, but your cutting stone isn't likely to survive. Instead, the H12 atari pushes your opponent back, but it's much safer.
229: Your opponent already has nowhere to run. If you take A14 instead, there's only room for one eye for white there. If your opponent takes it, he gets two eyes and lives.
You do get it eventually (good job!) but your opponent had the chance to save it for a while.

Good game! Next time it may help more to post a loss, so that there is more to point out for you. If you have any questions about anything I've said, feel free to ask. Overall, everything was pretty good, but be careful about playing on the second and first lines early on. Generally, if you're doing it, there is a fair chance that there are bigger moves available. There were a few good examples of good and bad plays on the second line in this game, so it's a good opportunity to see which is which.

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49: You connect, but you can capture white's three stones.

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Thanks. A lot to think on. I'll have to be careful about wasting moves on the first and second lines.



Yes. I saw that later on. S5 is much better than S8.

Hi! Two quick thoughts.

(i) When is s5 appropriate? While your q2 group was alive, s5 is a big move because it threatens s3, killing white's corner. Before you play s8, s5 is big because W s8 breaks into the right side. When you finally play s5, at move 63, it's worth about 4 points (six points for the capture, about two points for the reduction in territory, divided by two because W doesn't actually need to respond, so he can make a large play elsewhere). I think a play in one of the corners would have been better.

Compare this to when you play b5 at 193. I don't think B193 was necessary, but let's imagine that W had pieces at b1, b2, and b3. Now B b5 is the same sort of move as Bs5- you capture three pieces in a net against the edge of the board - but instead of capturing 3 pieces you get a huge corner. --- Or compare 225. Chew Terr is right that a13 works, with the appropriate follow-up at a14, but you can use the same capturing technique to kill it right away with b14.

Conclusion: when you capture to destroy the opponent's eyespace, or to connect disconnected groups, the capture is huge. When you capture to threaten to destroy the opponent's eyespace (etc.), the capture is worth twice as much because your opponent needs to respond locally, and then you get another move elsewhere (i.e., the move is sente). When you can capture just to get the points from the capture, that's not worth a lot.

(ii) Don't be afraid to play more slowly. You use about 12 seconds per move for the first 100 moves. Since your byo-yomi periods are 30 seconds, you could in theory have used all 25 minutes on your first five moves and then still played a more leisurely game than you actually did. This is something that I have trouble with, too - I start to feel stressed if my opponent has more time remaining than I do, regardless of how quickly I'm playing - but you need to take full advantage of your time settings.

Thanks for the analysis. Very insightful. Yes, when I get into byo-yomi I get panicky. Just knowing that I can't stop and analyze something makes me nervous. And I lost another won game on time trying to figure something out.

I've heard a lot of people give the advice to new players to play a lot of games and play them quickly. As a beginner, is it that more important, or do you still think I should play more slowly?

on move 34, instead of connecting, you can make a tigers mouth with r8.
for move 45 you can connect at o1, and kill white.
White' corner is still in jeopardy.White has to fix weakness and connect at s5 before playing s8 or otherwise lose the corner.You also have a weakness at s8 in the move 45 position.

in general, work on fighting: know when you actually there are real weaknesses and when it is necessary to capture. you don't want to waste a move (ie move 89 and 91). At the 89 position, if white extended out to f5 you can play a net with e6. you don't need to always play out the ladder. to that extra move you use to fix a nonexistent weakness is a move that you could have used to make more points.

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I'm still a beginner, so don't take my advice too seriously!

I think you should play whatever sort of game you think is fun. If you have fun playing blitz games, why not play blitz games? But if you set up a long game, you should use the time to do a lot of reading and thinking about which points on the board are biggest.

I think playing them too quickly isn't good. Something like 15 mins + 5x0:30 is a good compromise. Gives you time to think, but not so much you can get away with not keeping a reasonable pace. However, it encourages you to think for half a minute on every move, and I personally believe that thought processing time is what helps you weed out the good moves from the bad moves. Also, when you hit byo-yomi, pick up some moves that maybe aren't that great but you think at least demand a response (even things like atari-ing a stone by playing one that can be captured straight away) - that way you get your 30 seconds back to keep thinking about your "real" move.

Thanks.

It's very helpful seeing what I could have done. Now if I can just see it myself, during the game.

Good advice, but funny taken out of context.

@jts: Globally, capturing at s5 is not the best move. But, rightly or wrongly, in game reviews, I aim for simple advice that is "one rung up" the ladder from where the player is. Maybe that's the wrong approach, but it's my pet theory.

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I didn't mean that as a criticism of your advice. (In fact you ninja'ed me! ) I realize now that it looks that way.

My advice wasn't really aimed at "B63 wasn't the best global move", but at "sometimes capturing two stones is a good global move, and sometimes it's a small gote move" - which I think is one rung up for Thunkd. Two at most!

There's more than one way to look at that advice.

There is the proverb to "Lose your first 100 games quickly" (or something like that). One could say that it means to 1) play quickly, or it could mean to 2) get your initial losses (and learning) out of the way as soon as you can so you can move on toward your real learning

Typically, many beginners play far too slowly, agonizing over each move for 5 minutes or more at a time with absolutely no idea why they might choose one move over another. For these players, the advice is to play quicker. If they don't know why they would choose one move over another anyway, then they might as well just throw it down and see what happens. Then by playing quicker, you might begin to see the flow of the game, and realize your mistakes sooner so you can correct them sooner.

But some play too fast, mere seconds per move, and no thought whatsoever as to the consequences of their moves. For these players, we try to recommend to slow down and at least consider the possible consequences of a few alternate plays.

Find the balance. Think about your moves (and the followups) before you play them.