Hey everyone!

CSamurai and I played this ASR game this week. We both made mistakes - I made at least three spectacular fumbles as I attempted to kill a large group. I'd appreciate any feedback, especially on what I could have done in the endgame (late middle game?). I realize now that B had at least two opportunities to get to f5 before W, but once we get to move 175, what can B do?

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A slightly tangential request: at one point I saw a list (I'm almost positive on SL) of all of the points near the wall formed by the 3-3 invasion such that, if the invader gets them, he can start to seriously harass the wall. I can't find it anymore - does anyone know where it is?

Nice attack. It's a pity that he slipped out. All you needed was 159 at S15 and I think you've got him.

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Yeah, I think 157 at S13, or 161 at S13 would have been fine too...

It never even occurred to me that you could make an eye with a monkey jump. I wasn't thinking straight. Hopefully that's a mistake I won't make again.

A few comments on some of the opening moves:

The contact play at move 39 is much too direct an attack, since B has no hope of actually killing W here. Once W escapes (two moves later), this stone ends up too close to W thickness and is nearly a wasted move. A more patient attack like O14 would be much better. Depending on how W runs, B could aim at an invasion around M16.

Move 47 is another contact play which helps W more than B. If B wants to secure territory below, simply play S10. But really that is an endgame move, and there are much larger plays elsewhere this early in the game.

Move 71 is good shape, but this time B should attack strongly at L9, to force the weak W stones toward the massive B thickness waiting below. B would have an excellent chance of actually killing these stones. B came back to this strategy a few moves later, but by then W had a much more comfortable position and probably should have escaped.

Thanks, Mitsun. Is the kick in this situation (Move 37) an okay contact move? And is playing on the nose only okay if you can capture the stones whose nose you are hitting?

I definitely deserved to lose that corner. My real mistake came moves earlier when I could have backed down, taken some losses on the upper left, and connected everything solidly. I get a little too stubborn sometimes.

There's no luck in go, but sometimes there's luck in your opponent missing something. That was certainly the case with that particular game.

Had he succeded in taking the corner, I think I'd have lost the game by about 20 points, so it was a huge relief that I managed to slip out at the end.

The kick is a standard attacking move and is frequently but not always good. On the plus side, it stops W from sliding into the corner, but on the minus side, it forces W to strengthen his stones. I guess this comes down to the judgment of whether the W stones are heavy and subject to strong attack or not. In this game, I think it is a good move because B is very strong in this region. However, another good alternative would be to simply defend the corner at R14. Compared to the kick, this defends the corner better (note the aji of a W move at R15 in the game), but it does not force W to respond, so the W stone at R12 becomes lighter.

Hitting the nose seems inconsistent with the kick. First you force W to extend toward the center, then you try to block him directly from the center, but he easily gets around this block. Sometimes B plays Q12 or P12 instead of the kick, to block W from the center, but here I think that would let W live too easily along the side.

Thanks, Mitsun. That's helpful. When I want X and Y, I tend to grab X with one move and 50% of Y with the next move, which I guess is the definition of inconsistency.