When I was learning go in Japan, the custom was to allow take-backs. At least in amateur play. I never asked for one, I always granted them.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I was playing a Japanese player in a tournament who did a take back. I lost due to it, but the important thing was I enjoyed the game with him.

Why would it be a stain for something like that? I completely understand that if your opponent offers to let you take back a move that kills a group in a friendly game, I don't understand thinking a move like the above would be the same kind of thing. White 4 was essentially a pass, it might come in useful much later in the game but it's a crippling mistake and turns an even game into effectively a 2 stone handicap game.

I also don't feel you have a "right" not a grant an undo because of this personal approach with situations like the above. However, there is no right and wrong opinions on this topic just strong ones.


However, as an aside, I did watch a 7d do something like the following as white on KGS and go on to win (new account etc).

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm1
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 7 . . . . . , . . . . . 1 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 5 . . . . . , . . . . . 3 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

I don't think he was 7d...

I would like to say that today is my first time into SDK (and not due to rank inflation or something else but by pure play).
I know that for the most of you this is a ridiculous even to be called achievement, but for me it's a first milestone on a road to my goal and I'm proud and even more motivated now.
So, Vladimir [9k]

Congratulations!

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Rar! We must play before you get too strong for me.

This is my first win versus 8k opponent in my life. Just a couple of mins ago.

Attaching is not an attacking move; keep your distance if you want to make your opponents' stones weak. (Unrelatedly) I'm not usually one to harp on about shape, but it's important to make sure that you can't be torn in half.

Thank you.
I'll try to keep on my mind not to come to close. It's just that I can't resist sometimes to attach, kind of a bad habit. I'll work on that.

A general rule of thumb that I like (obviously doesn't always apply) is when I'm playing an attachment move I'm either defending and want to make eye space or the trade of making my opponent stronger locally for some kind of wall for me works out better for me globally.

I will force myself not to attach to oponents' weak stones in the future. Until I see it working, I'll have that strange feeling of doing something wrong.
Bad habit.

Well, here's another one vs. 8k from today. I would appreciate a few weak points reviewed and a general style also. Thank you in advance.

On the latest game:

Through move 14: Being able to climb up at H4 is good for black, even though white took the corner. Black can omit d4 to save the aji for later, or play at c2 instead for more stability in local sente.

Move 23: This area is too small to give up sente for at this stage. Black still has a double approach in the top left to look forward to, or could play around Q10 for a nice formation.

Move 29: The right side is less valuable, since white has a low group and neither corner here. Black should look to the top side and the unresolved upper left. A second move there is HUGE.

Move 47: 45 was a good move, attacking white, but by attaching to white's corner stone here, black is letting white off the hook for not responding earlier.

Move 55: White has a weak group, so black should look to make points by attacking it. If it gets strong, black's top right corner could be in trouble.

Move 63: Jump out first?

Move 77: This move doesn't make sense to me. Black has liberty issues and should probably just extend to j4. This lets white attack the black stones on the left, but black has some aji from cutting at f12 to work with.

The sequence that follows seems to involve some wishful thinking (misreading?) by black. Once black has lost the lower side, though, white has three settled corners, a big group dead, and a good chunk of two or three sides. Black has a few small groups and a center that's open on multiple sides, plus a weak white group that's mostly surrounded. The only way for black to really make enough points to win after move 110 or so is to kill that white group on the top side.

Around 118: Black's bottom right group could end up in trouble without reinforcement.

Through 141: Good catch. Black's back in the game at this point, after white has most likely lost the top side group and proceeds to throw away the upper left.

Move 164: be careful of the ko. In addition, this is a bit dangerous because black's top right is not 100% alive yet. S17 is a good move to stabilize it and take points, at some point.

Move 178: I think white should play n19 to pressure black's group here, instead of allowing the connection under.

Move 197: Also good. Another reason why white shouldn't have allowed n19.

Not much to say about the rest of the game...

Thank you very much.
I simply don't know what was I trying with 77 and a huge misread in that area later.

Don't stop thinking when you're playing. If stones are clearly dead, don't try to keep them, just sacrifice them.

Losing the two stones in the lower left early really sucked, because white got really thick; I don't know if you can feel the value of thickness yet, but that lower left white group was a perfect example of something you want to avoid.

Aside from that, make every move have a purpose, if you can; they should either make a framework, or make a framework into territory, or attack, or defend, or something like that. Don't play things like that large knight's corner enclosure in the bottom right, which is halfway between turning the corner into territory and attacking the white group. Either attack that white group or remove the 3-3 invasion.

Thank you very much for this review.
Now I clearly see why moves you marked as "pass" are wasted stones.

Last two days/games were very important for me because of your reviews. I learned:
1. Not to attach when I attack
2. To be careful not to be cut
3. Not to play 1 instead of 2 moves because I'm greedy
4. To leave dead stones to rest in peace
5. Generally, not to descend to 2. line in midgame
6. To ask myself before every stone placement "why do you want to put it there?"

@Skydyr, @Shaddy, guys, thank you for your invested effort. I'm trying to get every grain of knowledge from your advices and to get rid of bad habits. You're helping a lot.
I'll try not to make same mistakes today.

Cheers.

I'm a bit inexperienced with sgf tree reviews, so I have some formatting inconsistencies. I'd recommend going one move ahead of a branch to see if I made a comment and then used a branch to show it. I hope to get better at these in the future

Thank you, mate.

I'm sooooooooooooo ashamed of this game

Bottom right approach was a missclick but everything else was my lousy playing style.
Not to mention 26 points worth overplay.

Right now I feel only shame.

One thing I'm always worried about when giving review is that I'm insinuating there's one correct way to play the game. Playing next to stones has their time and place, and advice to stop playing attachments should be taken with grain of salt. Later in your journey you may learn about sabaki techniques that make use of attachments.

Advice like "don't play next to stones" is just giving shortcut to relatively good playing. I strongly encourage you to experiment with different moves and shapes. Being shown how they work or don't work should make it so that you have fewer gaps in your understanding. Be wary of becoming bookish joseki slave who thinks their play is perfect and sees no room to improvise. I like your style of playing.