Hi,

I'm in a slump. I have gone through a phase leaving my groups much too weak and this game is one of my attempts to make sure my groups are settled before I attack my opponents weak groups. I am embarrased about posting the game because of the terrible L/D mistakes I make late in the game as well as just blundering away my 4-stone group, but am prepared to take my medicine! Besides, whenever stronger players review my games the mistakes they think are important are ones I didn't even see!

Anyway, any comments are appreciated. Excepting the blunders this is generally how I'm trying to play.

Move 8: You have succeeded in being secure. Indeed you have succeeded too well. You overshot your mark and are now playing too conservatively.

With your last move, you have miai for life. (http://senseis.xmp.net/?Miai)
You can tenuki to a bigger point.

If he tries to hurt you, you are safe:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc If he approaches from the outside
$$| . . . . . . . . . .
$$| . . X . . . . . . .
$$| . . . . . . . . . .
$$| . . . . . . . . . .
$$| . . . . . . . . . .
$$| . . X . . . . . . .
$$| . . . , O . 1 . . .
$$| . 2 . O . . . . . .
$$| . . . . . . . . . .
$$| . . . . . . . . . .
$$|--------------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc If he approaches from the inside
$$| . . . . . . . . . .
$$| . . X . . . . . . .
$$| . . . . . . . . . .
$$| . . . . . . . . . .
$$| . . . . . . . . . .
$$| . . X . . . . . . .
$$| . . . , O . . . . .
$$| . 1 . O . . . 2 . .
$$| . . . . . . . . . .
$$| . . . . . . . . . .
$$|--------------------[/go]

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18: This is too thin. He can play P2 or Q3.

36: This may be too far. You are leaving a gap at R12 which is bad for you. What benefits do you get from the extra large extension? You can't hurt his group in the lower right. It is too strong.
R11 is probably better.

40: Ok, this works, but it is gote. There is a big gap on the other side of the board.
You can play C11 in sente. Or he can play C12/C11 in sente.

BTW, a similar situation exists on the bottom of the board, though slightly smaller. K3 for him is sente, and L3 for you threatens to rescue O2.

You could play C11. He must reply with something like B3, else you take C4. Then you extend to L3. You get all of the big points that way. In sente!

See http://senseis.xmp.net/?PlayUrgentMovesBeforeBigMoves

EDIT: An alternative at 40 is for you to play C4. He extends to C11, and you take D18. Now you still have D5, L3, and an invasion on the top side supported by D18.

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Would you mind explaining why 40 is gote? My thinking is that he has to respond here or I will jump to P8 and B isn't building anything anymore. I don't understand what besides not being surrounded that B group has going for it.

I also don't understand why C11 is sente for me. I understand that C11/12 is on one of my miai points for life in the UL corner but I don't understand why he can't just jump his group out if I take C11 and C4.

Sure you can play p8 to reduce his points, but so what? That doesn't make 40 sente. It's a gote move with another nice gote move as followup. Without getting all semantics, a move is sente if answering it is your opponent's best move (at least this is the definition which most clearly lets me show you why it isn't sente). But instead of black p8 I can see quite a few better moves, for example c17. Not only is this bigger in terms of points, it is also bigger in terms of strength of groups as it takes the eyespace of that white group in the corner. To answer the question of what that black group has going for it, tempting you into playing two slow moves at p10 and p8 whilst black plays better moves elsewhere is quite good enough. Even if yor two moves next to this thick black group were perfect it's an illustration of a way to use thickness: make your opponent worry about it growing and let them play pointless (literally) moves near it whilst you go do something useful elsewhere.



He can jump out, but won't make any points by doing so. In fact c4 is bigger for you (corners > sides). Indeed I would possibly played there on move 8 as his move 7 is only 2 spaces so if he extends it is 1 line too close. That's why joseki is 3 spaces.

Also to disagree with Joaz I think r10 is locally fine (though wrong timing, upper left more important) as the invasion can be dealt with by q11 q12 p12 thanks to your strong shape at q15 (which was a good move that punished his mistake of not playing there).

10: he has just reinforced this 4-4 and then you rush into this small space! You should approach the top right one instead as it is weaker. He should probably answer at r4.

14: should q3, then you get a bigger life.

18: as Joaz said, cuttable. P2

34: great

36: f17 (help corner and reduce his top side strength) or c4 (big, sente, makes him inefficient) are my first thoughts

40: d18 or c4. Corners are big. Not Joaz's c11 as c11 b3 is a good exchange for black!

42: approaches strong group. D18 or c4 again.

44: good

48+: c4 c4 c4!!!!!!!!

Thanks very much for these replies.

I have been having a very hard time understanding the point that both of you are making about these gote moves. There is a more abstract question that I am having difficulty formulating about this, essentially "How do I learn how many tenukis a particular local move is worth", but I also see that that is not relevant to what you are saying here--the moves you are suggesting would be bigger gote even if they weren't sente.

I have moved my focus over the past month or so from "fight, kill the other stones!"--which actually had me reasonable results because my opponents would often make reading mistakes--to understanding that the game is about making territory and trying to do that. These thick groups that don't look like they are settled yet are a bit of a thorn in my side right now. I feel like I should be able to attack them.

My thinking behind playing R10 was: I was at a bit of a loss about what to play. B D18 can be answered by C17, therefore I don't need to play there, the bottom group is similarly safe, I don't need to play there. Since my stones are safe, next priority is to attack B's weak stones and this was the best I could come up with. My plan was actually to threaten to do something with my dead stone at R6 because if I can connect it under or over the B group doesn't yet have eyes, and I thought that I would be able to come out of that with something like R10/Q10/P10, play P14 and then something something expand into the centre.

I do understand that if my groups are stable and my opponents groups are stable that I should look for the biggest point on the board, so my mistake here is actually in believing that the LR B group is not strong.

But I see that just the points I make by just playing the two corners myself even if they were gote are obviously bigger than anything I was going to make doing what I had planned (which didn't work out anyway---my opponent was as compliant about letting me surround his LR group as any of my opponents ever are and I still didn't do that much there), and quite honestly I didn't consider these moves during the game (D18 is actually a response to B's C11), because my focus was on attack (such as it was) and those LR stones were the ones that looked most attackable.

I have found over the past month or so that when I can get over that and just build bigger than my opponent that they don't tend to contest that very much and I just end up winning a peaceful game, but it is somehow difficult for me to do that consistently and I don't always realise I am doing it. More often I play the opening, look for the least strong group, and start firing stones at it. What looks like a small gote move from me at move 40 is actually me trying to bring down the castle wall!

I'm only 6k KGS, so I may not know as much as other people around here, but this is what I think:
First of all, you shouldn't think things like "I should attack his weakest group". Unless you're really behind in territory and have to try something, that is. Why not? Because the (in your eyes) weakest group, is not necessarily weak enough to warrant an attack. Instead you should think "I should attack weak groups". Notice the difference? The former means there always is a group to attack, because there always is a "weakest" group. the latter means however, you should only attack, when there really is a group weak enough to do so and you get profit in some kind by doing so. You can still attack a not-so-weak group, if you get something by attacking it (territory, strength, etc.), of course. Now, let's take a look at his group. it might look like there's no eyespace yet, but that doesn't mean it's weak. Even if you get a good attack from the top, black only has to play N2 for example, and is more or less immediately alive. And you don't get anything great by attacking, aside from some 3rd line territory on the right. If you attack from the bottom-left (let's say after you connected O2), he can make easy life on the right or even somewhere in the middle. The main problem is, you can't attack this group in sente. it can make life on the bottom, it can make life on the right, it can make life inside, it even has enough space to run, if somehow all else fails. Even if you were attacking from the top AND the bottom without him answering, the group wouldn't be in big trouble, because it has too many options to live.
This brings us back to "I should attack weak groups". The black group on the lower right is not weak. Plus, you can't get anything by attacking it (because it's not sente), so you shouldn't attack it. Play something on the left side, or take the lower left corner.

Deciding what to attack and when to attack is not something you can understand from one minute to another. As I said, I'm only 6k, so maybe I'm not even right with what I'm saying (I'm pretty sure I am, though ) and I have to learn a lot about attacking myself, but what I'm trying to say is: don't always look around the board and try to find something to attack. Instead, play big moves, wait until there is an opportunity, then attack and get something out of it.

NinG (and Ortho, too ),

As said, the black group there has plenty of options to make eyes on the lower side, the right side, and the middle. In fact it could even make eyes by killing the White group in the corner which is not 100% alive. T2 turns it into a ko, see Tripod Group with extra leg. This situation is a little different as white can play p1 atari in sente beforehand to live. However, if White waits until after black t2 to play p1 black can ignore it and s2: if White connects at r2 then black connects his stone in atari and White is dead, if White captures black s2 captures 3 stones to make most of his group live, and White is still not alive. Even if White gets p1 in early if black later plays n2 White can't connect without suiciding the entire corner.

So White wasn't playing as safely as he thought!

Oh wow,I had no idea. I read out early in the game that if S1, S2 lives (before inexplicably later playing T2). So I count 22 points here? But if it's actually ko, it is worth just making it live in gote earlier? How does this relate in size to the move 40 big moves of C4, etc?

Smaller. A move to avoid a ko is roughly a half or a third or so of the swing value (I'm sure Bill can explain, but of course all these calculations are approximations that ignore reading the board and ko threat situation). But your p1 to avoid the ko is fairly sente. Maybe you could play it right after black o3 and I expect a 10k will answer. I am not sure if answering is black's best move, (instead could f17 approach, for example). The big thing in favour of p1 being sente is that if ignored, white's capture at o3 is sente (black pretty much has to p4 block or white plays p4 and o3 are cut and very weak). So black connecting at p2 is a reverse sente. If white's followup after p1 was ignored was gote it would be much easier for black to tenuki and p1 would be a much worse move at that time.