Would you take gote at h17/g17 after the normal continuation and allow white to turn the upper right into a shoulder hit of 3-3? To me responding to 3-3 is more urgent: I don't mind playing the normal joseki as white's 3-3 was too early.

Maybe you're right.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Thanks for the comments, as always, very enlightening.

So, my blitz games are going well, but today I got some time at university any played two slower games. Both went pretty horribly.

The first one I won't post, I tried to be clever and ended up being moronic, the second one is this:



Luckily he let me kill a big group of his, but I should have lost big time.

Some of my own comments:
No idea what to do, looking at it now I would probably just tenuki. In the game I considered R15, but did not know what happens after black makes an empty triangle and cuts. In the end I chose the chicken move and ended up in a terrible situation.

One day I will stop playing this idiotic move, should have just pincered.

Now I get to attack, but not nearly as strongly as I would have hoped, maybe M15....

Snap move. Might not be too bad, but I should have considered the avalance at least.

Yeah, again this situation, for some reason I never have any clue what to do.

At this point I'm already kinda on tilt, because of the game before and how this one is looking. I have no clue how to best attack the black group on the right.

This again is a terrible result, guess that happens when your joseki knowledge only covers the other cut...

Here I try to kill the group(even in the game I realized it probably wasn't going to happen, so I was kinda playing in wishing mode anyways), bad idea. We both solidify our positions, but since black is ahead, I really should not want that.

:w126: Christmas came a few days early and I was a good boy, so I get to kill this group and get back in the game.

:w152: Not needed...

Enough comments, some more terrible sequences follow and I win a game that I should never had a chance in after the first few moves


Any correction on my comments appreciated. Also better variations always make me happy =)

- For 10, r15 would be good, black could empty triangle and cut and you have a fight. Welcome to Go! But block is not so bad: yes you could have taken advantage of black's slow move with r15 or some extension or tenuki, but giving black that exchange isn't so amazing for him. However, if it was a 4-4 corner then block would be much worse as it would mean black fixes the 3-3 weakness in sente, but with the 3-4 and kick of your game black didn't gain much.
- 16 is fine. If you want to pincer maybe do so before r15, then if black jumps you can r15, but what if he answer pincer with q14? Maybe you'd need to push on the 4th line to gobble up m17, so your play was fine.
- 24 is not an attack. As you say m15 could be nice. Or k16 m16 combo to build a wall. Or something else. So don't do anything here yet until you have a good way to choose one. Against this black style of fast development and weakish 2 space extensions, it's often best to just be patient and keep on playing the game, leaving him to worry about later attacks. If you "attack" too blunty and settle the shape, as in the game, you lose other opportunities. The 24-30 stones you got were pretty pointless as black is alive on the left side, and you just helped him live with his top group.
-32 I'd play low, black has a lot of points and I want some too to keep the balance and not have to rely on some central moyo that might not work. High should be fine too, but against this "grabbing territory with little weakish groups" style one counter is to grab territory yourself too if you are not so good at profiting from attacking.
-38: s7 to separate black, you want to keep miai of pressuring either the corner or r8. 40 can be q4 and then after black defends corner you can o3 and black can't poke out nicely like he did in the game.
-44: Wrong way to attack, doesn't make any profit, like 24. Either tenuki and let black connect on the 1st line whilst you play the opening, or play in a way that means you get s14 as this gives you a nice atari on his corner (and sente to kill it?). In fact there is some worry here that he could attack you wall.
-48 at s14, make your moves multi-purpose.
-50 is ok
-68 e2 only move. Very important. Remember you can capture at c2 unless he can immediately capture some of your stones in sequence of forcing moves in which they never get more than 2 liberties like a ladder (which he can't). Don't think about josekis, think about stones having 2 liberties or 3.
-72 Which stone is more useful: d5 or f2?
-92 If you pass can black live if he plays first? (This is a door group, but if you don't know it you can still read it). So surround.
-96 What happens if black captures this stone?

Just a couple of comments on the early play.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Hope some of my comments are useful to you.

Thanks, this is sure to help me in a ton of my games.

@Bill/tentano: Seems like Q14 for is the natural move. I need to take not of that. Lately I have been a little reluctant to build walls in gote, since what happens a lot(like in the game), my opponent plops down a stone with enough space for a two space extension an my wall doesn't amount to anything (and this one has the additional problem of already being undercut).

When White plays 146, Black's last chance to live (but not his first) was to answer at 2 below; 'a' and 'b' are miai. Christmas came early because your opponent decided to play Santa.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Alternative for Black 147
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . O . O a 2 . X O O O X . . |
$$ | . . . . . O X O O O X X b X O X . X . |
$$ | . . . . . O X X X X . X X 1 O X . X . |
$$ | . O O O . . O X . X X O X . O O X . . |
$$ | . X X . . . O O X X O O X . . . O X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . O . . . . . . . O . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . O . O O O . O . O O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . O . O X O . . O X O O |
$$ | . . . . . . . X O X X . X X X X X X O |
$$ | . . X , . . X . X , X X X O O X . . X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . X O X O O X X . O X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . O O . O O X X X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . O . |
$$ | . O O O . . . . . . . . O . . . O O . |
$$ | O . O O O . . . . . . X O . . O X . . |
$$ | . O X O X . . . . , X . X . O , X . . |
$$ | . X X O X . . . . . . . . . O X . . . |
$$ | . . . X . X . . . . . . . X X . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

I like ancient games to illustrate the value of walls. Players back then were more territorial than players today, but they still built walls in gote. Here is a game where both players do so.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

He played Santa? How about Sleepy?

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

@ez4u: Yes, I realized that, but still, I'm not one to turn down a nice present if I get one =)

@Bill: Thanks, that game was kind of an eye opener, seeing how little actual territory the walls of the pros ended up making I guess my expectations were kinda out of whack.


No game post for today, I think I got the gist of most of my games. But I was quite productive, 7 Blitz games and one long one. I realize more and more that my fundamentals are lacking(but it might also be rereading "Lessons in the fundamentals of Go", Kageyama has a way of making me feel like an idiot).

Anyways this is a serious problem and I'm not 100% sure how to change it. The blitz games are awesome at exposing my flawed fundamentals, but at the same time it makes it hard to fix them.

I came up with a little experiment which I will try over the next few days/weeks. I'll assign a level to each chapter of the book(or close to that) and put them in order, level 1, level 2, level 3....

I'll start at lvl 1, and as long as I am there I am only allowed to think about the things the level demands. As lvl 1 I'll pick "The struggle to get ahead". Which means while stones are pushing against each other I am only allowed to try to get ahead and get a good result that way. After that I'll review the game. If the plan worked and I made no spottable lvl 1 mistakes I'll get to go to lvl 2 (Will probably be cutting and connecting). This will be independent from the outcome of the game, so I can advance even if I loose.

Should I make a mistake (or several) during the game I will go back to the lowest level of the occured mistakes. This may be brilliant or a total failure, lets see^^

Blurp on how I came up with the idea, for those interested:

Play on Lunatic only like me.

Yeah, I'm sure that won't fry my brain or anything...^^


Ok, played 9 games today, went 3-6 x.X

As Kageyama said: If you can't read you can't do detritus. Or something along those lines. So I guess I'll just have to keep doing tsumego unitl my reading gets better and play more games until I recognize more situations(or ideally both). All the games I lost were because either:
- One of my groups died, usually due to a reading mistake
- I tried to kill something unkillable and took a local gote move. A lot of the games were quite close, so one or two wasted moves would probably have made the difference.

Also the whole focusing on one aspect is super hard, since I can't always apply the principle I'm currently working on(its hard to push forward when trying to find the killing move on a group) and when I should be going back to it I have already forgotten that I'm supposed to focus on one thing^^. Though I had several games where I managed to go the whole game never pushing from behind(unless it was to live). So it might be a partial success, lets see if that sinks in more during the next days. As soon as it becomes automatic I can focus on the next thing.

Today: 6 Games, went 4-2.

I also took a glance at Roberts "First Fundamentals" book again, since it fits the theme of what I'm working on right now.

Which raises the question if I should be working on my fundamentals in the first place. Without a doubt they need improvement, but both this and Kageyama's book basically require you to be stronger at reading than I currently am. So I'll definitely keep up with my blitz games and a slow game every now and then, but I'll supplement it with more reading practice.

In addition to Cho's elementary problems I'll do some from 1001 Life and Death problems every day, to mix it up a little and for the additional benefit of not having to stare at a screen all the time.

For every successive piece of knowledge you need the previous part on which it is founded.

I'm strongly convinced that for me, this means I need more reading proficiency, so I can see why things will go wrong in the "obvious" examples.

Not that I reject any of the higher level stuff, but I can't internalize it without some preparatory knowledge. After all, obediently playing as told is useless when your opponent doesn't join in with your scripted routine. I can't really punish errors in a tactic I don't understand properly.

Plus there's that smug, self-satisfied feeling of having spotted an obvious kill when your opponent has so foolished played tenuki. Sweet gratifcation.

@tentano: May we should start a "horribly readers anonymous" club of some sort^^.

Well the things that sucks most about being a university student is that you actually have to do something for university every now and then.

I did most of my problems, but only one game today.

I asked about a similar formation a while ago, but here goes again: What to do for move 62?

Move 62 is too late, you have to do something on move 60 to defend the corner.

At you could have approached from the other side.

was a huge red flag, putting that corner under pressure.

I would block on the other side. Miserable life or one eye + escape seems likely.

at C4 to make a ko, followed by white A3, black B1. If you don't want that ko, you really shouldn't play a double hane on the 1st line. It's really not that great to make a ko at this time.

I agree with Shaddy's comment that you probably should have protected the corner sooner, given the threatening move of . That said, I thought the overall question was really interesting, and decided to make studying this corner situation my focus for today. You can see what I came up with here.

62 isn't too late (though your 60 was small and f4 would be better), d3 will live easily. In fact your 62 is fine given the way white played: 70 is the big mistake, how about c2 and then a2? White is dead with not many liberties and the e4 cut doesn't capture either of your bits fast enough.