Here is a game that went very badly for me. In particular I didn't know how to deal with my opponent invading. Also, I am playing moves that I don't think are good, but I don't know what moves would be better. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

The easiest way for you to become stronger is to quit letting the other player push between your stones. Particular examples are move 16 ( should be E13 ), move 44 ( should be K4 ) move 88 ( should be F11 ).

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Thanks. On Move 88 I was worried about a double atari on H10. Should I have not been?

Study it more closely.

Not when you capture your way out of it. The key point is to not let White in. Who cares if you lose one, or both, of the middle sided stones, as long as you keep that right territory

Joaz said the most important thing to work on, and he's entirely right. I'm going to add a little more detail on what he said, and point out a few other small mistakes that might be easy to see.

Move 16, for example is huge. Because of the atari, he gets to cut you in half if you don't play as Joaz recommends, or at least at D12. To emphasize the importance, look at 15, then 25, and see what happened to your corner.

30: C3 will claim more of the corner, so you may as well take it.
40: J3 will hold white down to the second line, which would be great for you. Obviously, however, that lets white cut you at H4, right? As a reading exercise, tell me: does that cut currently work, after J3? If the cut doesn't work, keeping W on the second line is well worth having to keep an eye on the cut later.
44: Joaz is right. With this move and the half-dozen previous, imagine your stones pushing white's corner stones. Where are you currently pushing white? You're pushing him up and out, into your biggest framework, in addition to doing it with a single weak stone.
52: This is the same as 44. Imagine you're pushing white around, which way are you pushing? Like waves breaking on a single rock, white's stones are just going to just splash past on one side or the other, or worse, both. I'm not trying to be super-harsh, so I apologize if I come off as such. Just think of it as this way: W is trying to get out. It's asking a lot to entirely stop him, so you're best off picking a side (the left one) and prioritizing it. If you get to come back and block white from the right later as well, great, but better one or the other than trying to stop him cold and failing.
80: Don't bother, this stone has nowhere to run.

edit: Okay, two strong players have posted since I started typing. Listen to them, they know. =)

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

I, too, fully agree with Joaz!

Anyway, if you're interested, I have a "homework problem" for you, based on this game . Did you ever study basic life and death ("tsumego")? There is a good introduction at http://senseis.xmp.net/?path=LifeAndDeath&page=IntroductionToLifeAndDeath. It's a good way to get stronger!

Now the question:
Let's look at the final board position. First: the black group around H6; then, the black group around C8. Can you figure out the status (ie. alive/unsettled/dead) of these groups?

Of course, if you need help, feel free to ask!

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My name is Gijs, from Utrecht, NL.

When in doubt, play the most aggressive move

A few comments:



Think big. You focus too much on single stones or a small number of stones. You captured stones you should not have captured and saved stones you should have sacrificed.

Think about the strength of stones. You strengthened your opponent's stones and failed to strengthen you own. You attacked strong stones, only to end up being attacked.

The attachment is usually not a good attack.

Make your stones work together.

Learn basic life and death.

Good luck!

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

That is very helpful actually.

Glad to hear it, it's good to know what's helpful. You know how they tell you to play at the border of two frameworks? It's the same idea, it's kind of a /shove/ "You go over there!"

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

I believe it is dead as I have to fill both f6 and h5 to make it live.




I believe that if I play b9 it lives.


I've just recently started playing life and death puzzles on gochild. One of my problems is knowing when to worry about life and death. At an early point I won't have any worries about a group as it isn't threatened then later on I'll suddenly realize it is in trouble. I need to play moves that achieve other objectives as well as build good shape.

Umm... no. I had not heard that. How do you define frameworks by the way? Would you play between the two, or just near them?

Thunkd, here's more homework if you're game for it. What happens if B plays G5, G6 or F5?

Also, here's one reference on playing on the border of a framework (http://senseis.xmp.net/?BorderLines). I'm sure there is something better out there.

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Occupy Babel!

A few, huh? But seriously, thank you. That's a lot of good information. Obviously I have much to learn.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c Borderlands DLC
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . X . . X . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . W ? ? . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . ? ? ? . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . ? ? ? . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X , O O . . . O . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . X X O . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

The marked white move is at the boundary of two big frameworks. While neither one is territory yet, you can see the huge increase in potential for white simultaneous to the reduction of potential for black. (I stole this position from a problem that was on gochild's opening problems. Notably, basically every one of the problems in their opening set is either this sort of framework border play or a group safety issue. That shows how big this sort of thing can be.) If black gets to play, a move around F6 or E7 is valuable for the same reason.

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

That's not quite correct (see hyperpape's post).


Correct!

Also, if white would play b9, you would die outright. Thus, this is quite a big point for both players.


That's exactly right. Finding this balance is a matter of experience and looking at your own games critically. Given that you're posting your game here, the second point should be no problem .

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My name is Gijs, from Utrecht, NL.

When in doubt, play the most aggressive move