Hello everyone,

I would like to kindly ask you to look at 2 attached games and give some comments.
Regardless of the score I didn't really know how to play them (though they look quite peaceful and simple)

My rank is about 8kyu on dragon. My opponent's rank was quite close to mine.

I have put some questions and comments in the sgfs - they are marked with "otagota".

any comment and advice is very welcomed.

thank you in advance,

kind regards
otagotasolo


GAME 1





GAME 2

Hi ota,

Game 1:

standard bad habit: B bumps himself on the head,
good shape for W "hane head of two," etc.; good exchange for W.

you tenuki'd lower right corner, what makes you think
you can tenuki AND get sente ? If everybody can tenuki from a keima
approach to a star point and always end in sente,
then nobody would reply to a keima approach to a star point!
You got sente upper left corner here, because B played badly,
starting with . You can go back and reply lower right corner
on , instead of C10.

better to just calmly reply at Q14;
your move helps B fix his weakness at o16, etc.
You are helping B get stronger here.

this move says you're giving up the two P6 stones:
if this is not your plan, then connect on with the bamboo joint P4.

seems to contradict and . You can take cash with P2,
or start a fight with L3, etc.

bad shape. Jump to P2.

just calmly reply at F4; don't fix W. See .

your turn to bump head, make good shape for B;
see . Locally, maybe kosumi E13 better.

the center is not huge. R11 is big.

did you consider H12 ?

the center is not big in this game.

very bad. Just reply. Your judgement of the center in this game is off.

Hi ota,

Game 2:

standard bad habit. The result of this sequence
is you fixed all of W's weaknesses here. Just jump to J3 or J4 directly.
WAIT. Be patient: W always has a weakness there until he fixes it.
Don't fix it for him. See also , , , in game 1.

no problem, all OK. The other mistakes are much bigger
and more urgent to study and fix. Things like forcing your opponent
to fix his weaknesses.

standard invasion points R11, R12, etc.

no problem. Again, other basics problems are much bigger.

- standard bad habit, bad exchange: you still
have not fixed your weakness at M3.
( K3 + o2 + Q1 ) is a standard bad combination at these levels.

- you forced W to fix his weakness.

gote and it STILL does not fix M3!

strange: flower ko for B.

fight the flower ko — you get 2 moves elsewhere.

wrong atari.

same mistake as .

Mistakes like , , and , etc. are much bigger than
worrying about opening moves like .

Hi EdLee,
I wanted to thank you for the reviews.
I will need some time to study them.
May I contact you if I had any questions?

Kind regards
Otagotasolo

P.S.
In the Game 1, move 16: did you mean Q14?

Hi ota, you're welcome. Yes, Q14. You can ask the questions here,
then other more knowledgeable people can help with the discussion, too,
and we can all learn.

Hi EdLee,

I would like to ask some questions because I can't understand some moves you described:

Game 1,
Q1)
move 16: you wrote I helped white to get stronger but I got really big corner.
I believed it to be a good exchange.
I still look at this situation and just can't see why this was not good.
What do I miss here?

Q2)
The same with my opponent's move 37 which is the similar to 16.
both sides get big territory out of this.

Would you please show some possible continuation ideas that could help me understand these 2 situations?


Game 2
Q3)
move 25: I fixed the corner my opponent got the right side (which was open for monkey jump).
I believed it to be a great deal for me. I don't see why this was not good.

Q4)
In game 2, what is the best way/time to fix M3 weakness?


looks like problems 1-3 are all quite similar.
If you would notice some general topic I could study
to improve here I would be very thankful for an advice.

kind regards,
otagotasolo

Regarding Q1 I would say that in fact in this situation your attach and pull back might well be good and in fact better than q14: it's hard for me to judge. But Ed is right that usually calm q14 is best. The idea of q14 is it leaves black with a problem:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Standard continuation to 5
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . |
$$ | . . O X . . . . . . . . . . 4 2 3 . . |
$$ | . . O X . X . . X , . 9 . X . O . . . |
$$ | . . . O X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . 0 . 1 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . , . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . 8 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

If black tenukis, e.g. to double approach the lower right which is very big, then white can try to get sente to invade the top. This is an attacking invasion on black's group, but the important issue is how much profit can white get from this attack other than turning the m16 area to dame. It's not clear to me who this is good for: will white make up enough for the loss in the lower right?

If black takes gote to defend the top, which would be honte perhaps (but I think double approach is good too) then white gets sente to answer in the lower right somehow which is a big difference to your attach which ends in gote for white. The question is how does black defend? If with this 6 it is rather small (white has sente monkey jump at b for yose, and also nice yose at c) so white is happy (compared to the game the difference in points on the top side is only 13 points, not worth spending a gote on IMO given the urgency of lower right) but maybe black would defend on a large scale at a and claim to kill an invader.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . b . . . . . |
$$ | . . . c . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . |
$$ | . . O X . . . . . . . . . . 4 2 3 . . |
$$ | . . O X . X . . X , . 6 . X . O . . . |
$$ | . . . O X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . a . 1 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . , . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

So if black could play a above and get away with it, then maybe I like black there, in which case your attach would be a good idea: I don't mind giving black that rather small top side as white has big top corners. But sente for lower right is so big. Something else to bear in mind is in the game variation the upper right corner is not 100% yours if later black gets a stone at r12. (And as for Q2 that kick in no way makes the lower right corner black, that's easy to invade.)

thank you for explaining
I must say "wow".
I never went so deep in my analysis. thank you for showing me these examples.

Actually I have always looked for quick local solutions to avoid global "complications" or local surprises (like invasions).

Hi ota, do you realize without the exchange, you still have R11 as an option ?

I did not say the exchange ( - ) was bad. I just wanted to point out you fixed his weakness for him (for example R11).

Hi ota, B has multiple options. But the main point here is that your exchange ( - ) did not fix M3.
But, your exchange ( - ) removed your option to jump into 3-3 at R3 -- so your exchange ( - ) helped W and hurt yourself.

Game 2 move 49 etc reminded me of this famous quote:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana

(or attributed to Churchill as "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it")

Some comments.



Main lesson: The frontier of frameworks is big.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Hi EdLee




frankly speaking I wasn't really aware of neither of the quoted points.
Looks like this reviews have revealed some new concepts to me - thanks to yours and Uberdude's comments I get slowly some understanding.


Hi Bill,

thank you for your review. I will study it very soon.

Hi Bill,
thank you for the review and the great tips regarding the frontiers.
kind regards
otagotasolo