Well, I hope that gets your attention.

Strong players keep saying that thickness is good, but I can't remember one game where giving up territory in exchange for thickness has worked well for me. What tends to happen is something like this:

Thoughts; salt to taste.

Fedya,

Without looking at the other reviewers I like to note that your opponent is quite strong, probably much stronger than 7 kyu. So nothing to be ashamed of. That said I dislike your position after 42 very much: about 14 white stones used to encircle 5 points, not fully alive, letting him build influence around it. So you need to look only at your first 20 moves or so.
10 at R6. Now you can answer Q12 at S12.
14 at H17; he is vulnerable at K18. if he strengthens his moyo there is still the invasion O15, which is better than M16.aybe
I don't like the heavy 24. Maybe N14, N13, Q15 or R15.
But probably the stronger reviewers give you more helpful advise. Tomorrow I will compare my observations with the others.

I presume the thickness you are finding inadequate is the sequence to ? That sequence was great for W! It created useful W thickness, limited a potentially large B territory, and rendered a B wall largely ineffective, all in sente. Unfortunately was almost a pass. If W had instead played something like E9 or F10 or F12, the result would have been very good.

The B invasion was an overplay, which W really should have punished. Surely you could see this was too close to your wall? W response was the right direction, but I would take a hard look at the severe attack D12 instead. It looks like this might kill B outright. At the very least, this would force B to live small, while letting W make compensating territory in the bottom left and thickness in the center. Since B has to live, W should also come away with sente, to get the important first move in the lower right.

hmm, lack of proper thickness, I'm sure I've gotten an email about this, lemme check...

_________________
Tactics yes, Tact no...

Some basic ideas that occurred repeatedly in this game:

1. Play away from thickness.
2. Contact moves strengthen both sides.
3. Invasions don't just destroy the opponent's territory, rather, they convert it into outward strength.

Move 14: The invasion in the game is too singleminded. It limits the opponent but gains nothing for you (well, actually it gains you a weak group). So it's much smaller than it may look. Consider a move like G17 - it achieves multiple goals at once - it reduces black's territory *and* expands your own. So it's larger than it may look.

Up to move 44, the invasion has successfully converted black's potential territory into a thick outward facing wall. Rather than gain thickness yourself, you've actually given your opponent quite a bit. With the board this open and the wall facing white's scattered stones on the left, black's thickness can be put to good use, so despite some shape errors and slow moves by black, black is still okay.

Move 46 is a nice idea. Playing contact moves makes both sides strong, but black is already strong on the top, so you're inviting black to overconcentrate himself. Which he does. Good job.

Up to 57, black used his thickness to make a flat, uninteresting territory while white gained strength in a useful direction. But with 58, white continued to play near thickness, rather than away from it. Where both sides become strong, moves become worthless, so you should be watching for the first possible moment to play away.

Move 60: Is this a position where you want to enclose black and let him try to live in gote (D12), or where you want to run him out and chase him (C11)?
Step back and take a look at the whole board. If you chase him out with C11, the only place to chase him is down into the bottom side. So imagine it: black runs out at E13, F12, F9. White chases at H13, H11, H9. That means white's moves are all right next to black's thickness, rather than away from it. They will all end up on dame points. That sucks. Black will be really weak, but if he can survive, it's hard to see how white will have profited too much from the attack.
If instead you enclose black with D12 and let him struggle for life, and then take sente, then Black will have given you useful outside strength. C9 will become part of a strong surrounding wall, and then you can then play a move like K5 to turn the lower left into a nice medium-sized framework. Seems like a better plan.

Move 66: Yes, this did not end well for white. If you can execute a solid clean cut, or you can snip off and kill the bulk of the group, then it can be okay to cut apart a weak group. But if it gets messy, then again, we know that contact moves make both sides strong, so by cutting, you are making the rest stronger. And a weak group is happy to sacrifice part of itself so the rest can become strong. Through move 79, that's what happened.

Move 96: This seems okay to me. But still, remember that an invasion converts the opponent's potential territory into outward thickness and power. So it should not be a surprise that your R7 group becomes a little weak. You are giving the opponent thickness and power right next to it.

So to summarize: Play away from thickness. Learn how contact moves strengthen groups and learn to apply that knowledge. And lastly, when invading, don't think only of territory. You are converting the territory into potentially massive strength for the opponent, so you must look at how that strength will affect the surroundings first.

Thanks to everybody for the reviews and comments. Responding to multiple commenters in one post:


Seeing as that's the thickness that I couldn't use effectively, I'd say yes.


I was worried about Black turning.


is the sort of move that I see my opponents play and think, "If I were to play this, all those dan players over on Life in 19x19 would be screaming at me." As others have pointed out, it's later that I really screwed up.

I think I've posted before that I often look at stronger players' advice the way I view TV cooking shows. The TV chefs make beautiful meals look so easy, but when you try it yourself, things never seem to go nearly as well as they look on TV. I mean, I tried to use the thickness to attack and get territory elsewhere, but as you can see, that's not at all what happened.



And what happens after Black responds with K18? To me it looks as if Black has an even nicer moyo than he did one move earlier. Somebody suggested O15, but I don't see how that helps White.

That's correct, and good observation,
and we see this in many other areas: photography, driving, math, painting, golf, piano, etc.
One reason is the pros have put in their 10,000 hours and their basics are very solid.
Kyu basics, by definition, are not. And that's why basics are so very important.

Consider what happens if you play F10 instead, and black turns at H15. What is black threatening? You can just tenuki again, such as K5, building a very nice moyo. If black then ataris at G14, you can simply respond this time at F13. You've tenukied *twice* and you were still able come back to take a chunk of sixth-line territory. And what has black gained? Only about 7 more points right in front of his wall.

Clearly, continuing to play there is very bad for black. Why? Because he's playing right next to where he is already strong. So any additional strength he gains is wasted. And he's playing in an area where you're strong also, so his moves have almost no effect on you. By the same reasoning, you should not be slightest bit interested in continuing to play there either.

Play away from thickness.



K18 is terrible for black. It's on the second line and does not expand his territory. Again, I think you're ignoring the fact that G17 expands your own territory also. Moves like G17 that both expand your own territory and reduce the opponent's are worth double what they might seem, because they do both jobs. And invasions are worth much less than what they might seem, because the territory invaded is not simply destroyed. The opponent gets plenty of useful strength in return, and you often also get a weak group.

Don't worry about the moyo, especially if you're developing nicely as well. If there are good moves that develop yourself while limiting its growth, it can be good to take those first. If the opponent defends with something like K18, then he's not expanding, whereas you are, so you're making good headway. And if he doesn't defend, then you've simultaneously taken profit and made a future invasion or reduction easier.

W14 and what follows really make the game very favourable for Black. Not only is this usually the wrong way to invade this kind of extension (1 pt. lower almost always is better), it also removes all funny business you could have done to Black in the corner and on the right side, turns them into solid Black territory and gives you a weak group in exchange. If you feel like urgently playing an unsound early invasion (despite the subject being thickness) I would consider points like R17, Q17, R13.