A little early for this (I planned to post it on saturday) but I'm just so pleased I got a game which meets the criteria (no big capture, small points difference, ends with scoring) I set out. It's harder than I thought to avoid having huge captures.

I would especially appreciate pointers about the first 50 moves or so, where I am beyond all doubt weakest.



Mirror go up to 14 made me a little jittery. I think I underwhelmed so much in the opening that my opponent abandoned that plan.
I didn't really understand how to properly respond to 22. I winged it and it wasn't the worst result, but I don't believe it was the best possible one.
31 I'm unsure about. Would the bottom right group be a better target?
35 seems a little overzealous in retrospect. It worked the way I wanted it to, though.
39 I'm not sure my group on the left side deserved to live, but it did. I felt it was alive, so went for the bottom right.
43 It feels a bit cramped, but I don't think G4 would have turned out as well.
67 I feel somewhat in charge of this game. I am suspicious that means white made mistakes.
113 I had read this out. Even though I lost this game, I still feel quite happy with being able to do this.
126 Feeling less happy because I misread this
145 In retrospect, it seems better to save the G16 stones rather than go for this convoluted stuff.
149 and now I have to go for the capture or it all dies.
161 from here I should have kept much more of that area.
177 this is probably a mistake, but not that bad yet (it gets worse). Each of the following suggestions would have let me win.
185 N12 is much safer
189 P10
197 N13
205 Q15
209 P11
The rest is not particularly exciting yose.

At 177, you can kill with P10.

In a position like that, he wants P10 himself because it is good strong shape. Therefore ( following the proverb that you should take the point that your opponent wants ) P10 should be on your short list of moves to be considered.

A few minutes spent reading should convince you that it kills him.

And then you win.

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A few comments.

Go to move 115.



Main points:

1) Sacrifice stones instead of trying to save everything.

2) Make your own stones strong when attacking.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Yeah, it was only at 128 I realized that I had done it wrong. Up to that point I was convinced I would capture the white stones.

I'm often right about this sort of thing, but not in this game.

I think white's 156 is the mistake that let my greed pay off a little bit. Definitely relying on unforced errors again.

Q14 at 163 was something I really didn't think of at all. But it looks very nice.

So I take it the opening was by some random chance actually not that bad?

Probably on the top ten misunderstandings for many amateurs.With the minimal help from books, online resources, or nice people around 10k or better,
even some novice games can have openings identical to pro games.

Conversely, for an SDK game to have an exceptionally bad opening,
it may require exceptional efforts or circumstances.

Well, I don't know if an opening is good or bad. I can spot SOME mistakes, but I'm often behind by move 50.

That I'm often ahead by move 150 tells me that if I could be a little bit more capable earlier on, I would be a lot stronger.

This could be the case for you -- Good luck.