I'm still working to understand positional judgment on choosing the correct pincer. I played this long pincer at black 21 because the position looked similar to one I'd seen in a pro game and I've played it before with good results but I'm wondering if it was actually a good exchange for me. Any other comments on the game are appreciated.

_________________
Thinking like a go player during a game of chess is like bringing a knife to a gun-fight. Thinking like a chess player during a game of go feels like getting knifed while you're holding a gun...

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but it doesn't matter what pincer you play when the rest of your moves are worse than any pincer. What mistakes in basic local shapes can you find in the first 30 moves?

Haha, I do appreciate the honesty but a little more description might help me along a little faster. As for your question, I just played the game so I obviously feel mostly good about it. However, I'm very much in an experimental phase right now so I don't hardly expect anything I do to be "right".

_________________
Thinking like a go player during a game of chess is like bringing a knife to a gun-fight. Thinking like a chess player during a game of go feels like getting knifed while you're holding a gun...

Hey, it's Saint Ravitt. I see your games on OGS all the time.

Now, I'm sure there will come along a much stronger player who will be able to give more specific guidance. As far as advice is concerned, I agree with what Uberdude is saying, but I'm going to try to word what he's saying differently.

I don't think it really help folks at our level (DDK) to know whether a particular strategic approach was a good one. What I mean is that a high-level player might look at the position and see a move from the opponent that could really punish it. While they could tell you "yes, great move!" or "no, that doesn't quite work out," you can't really utilize that in your future games. The chances are you won't see this exact position for a while. Even if you did come across one that is close to the same, a one-stone difference in the position could make the move optimal or suboptimal.

Better than that, I would suggest focusing on local improvements around where your shape got you into trouble. Anywhere you suffered locally or lost stones without a gain is a great opportunity to see what can be done better and to try out variations. Also, the folks around here love getting into those details, and in fact there's a forum dedicated to just that purpose.

All that said, I thought the pincer looked fine, using the criteria that I wouldn't mind being in black's position at that point in time.

Overall, the pincer seems a bit vague. I'd play a tighter pincer, one that works better with your K6 and K16 stones.

Below is a critique of the pre-pincer moves. Now that they are covered, Uberdude can comment on the pincer.

_________________
Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

Thanks for the word! I give people Chess counseling all the time and when a beginning player asks me "what do you think of this move?", obviously I look at the entire position and think "wow, I'm not sure where to begin with this one :/" None the less, that doesn't stop me from being able to at least assess the students strategic idea and tell them whether they're even on the right track (regardless of the fact that they're level of play is far inferior to my own). If you can't meet a student where they are then you have no business giving instruction to anyone. Regardless of your own expertise, you're simply worthless as any sort of mentor (no, I'm not suggesting that "Uberdude" did any such thing to me; just a tip from the not so wise).
Another example of this: I'm a Spanish tutor. When a student asks me "did I pronounce this word correctly?" The fact that the entire sentence they've just attempted to say made no coherent sense doesn't stop me from answering their question.

_________________
Thinking like a go player during a game of chess is like bringing a knife to a gun-fight. Thinking like a chess player during a game of go feels like getting knifed while you're holding a gun...

Ok, strategic idea assessment: pincering was fine, the fighting that followed was what caused you problems. Picking a different pincer won't fix this.

While I can understand the idea that Joelnelsonb's biggest mistake might not have been a pincer, I can see his point in that it can still be good, as a teacher, to answer the question.

Recently I feel passionate about the idea that, a student can learn when he or she is motivated. When they are excited about what they are studying, other things will follow.

Perhaps choosing a better pincer won't win Joelnelsonb his or her next game. But since the question was asked, Joelnelsonb is clearly interested in choosing good pincers. Let's not extinguish that interest. If he asks, "What can I do to improve?", well, that's a different question.

_________________
be immersed

His question was about whether this was a good exchange for him and he focused in on the pincer selection. What everyone is trying to tell him is the exchange was dictated more by his local play errors in the corner than his choice of pincer.

Edit: I quite strongly feel that it is part of a teachers job to help their student ask the right questions. Teaching is a dialogue, the idea that you know what questions to ask about something you know very little about should be immediately nonsensical to anyone. The key is the teacher doesn't innately know which questions the student needs to ask but needs to discover them through a back and forth with the student. If either party refuses to budge then no one learns anything.

And, as always in such situations, both opinions are valid. Both of you are correct. A teachers job in such a situation is finding the threshold between
(1) "Pincering is utterly wrong. You should play bla bla" and
(2) "Locally, pincer A is better than pincer B. But in this global situation you can play bla bla instead of the pincer, too."

Maybe we can do both in most situations/questions. Maybe one pincer is better than the other but pincering in itself is wrong or not optimal. In most amateur games this should be true. Why not explain both points, if possible/reasonable?

I'd argue it's not the right question but the wrong question points in an interesting direction, one thing that is raised here is that the OP didn't see the mistakes in the corner as if they realised they got a raw deal in the corner after the pincer the question wouldn't be about the pincer being right or wrong but what should have happened after that pincer instead of the game result. So maybe the question isn't "which pincer?" but "what should I expect after a pincer?" and maybe joel might realise something broader about go by considering the importance of asking those questions in the right order.

And still we can say: "You chose the wrong pincer and you screwed up afterwards. Let me show you both..."

I think it's worth it to consider the difference between the various pincers. I'm, after all, of the mind that we should strive to understand the purpose of the moves we play. (Note : I don't claim that what follow will be correct. Stronger players are welcome to correct my flawed understanding)

Part of it is simply joseki knowledge : For example, if you pincer and your opponent jump into the 3-3, there will be more or less aji in the approach stone afterwards, which you might want to kill off. What might be joseki with a specific pincer might not be with another simply because the pincer now occupy an intersection that the opponent would have played otherwise.

First, what is the purpose of a pincer? This is quite simple : to prevent the enemy from making a base with his approach stone, maybe chasing him into the centre while making territory on one or both side. At other time, the pincer also double as an extension from the opposite corner, maybe the most common example of double purposes moves.

Their are two differences in pincers. How close they are, and whether they are high or low. To be honest, I'm not sure what exactly is the difference between the latter two apart from the general "3rd line : territory, 4th line : influence" rule.

Close pincers are more severe, but at the same time, because they're close to the enemy, they are also more prone to be counterattacked. Leaning on the enemy's corner stone then playing a counter pincer is a common tactic. There may also be the possibility to attach to the pincer to get shape (whether it is a good idea or not would depend on the situation I guess).

Wide pincer put less pressure on the opponent, but at the same time they will be safer, while still preventing the creation of an ideal base for the approach stone.

Then what about the 2-space pincers? They are somewhere in between, I guess? To be honest, I only use them when the pincer double as an extension, but a 3-space pincer would not be severe enough, and a 1-space pincer would be too far from the position I want to expand from.

In this case... I think a closer pincer would have been preferable, because it would make jumping into the corner more attractive for white (well, at least I'm personally least likely to double approach with a one space pincer) to jump into the corner, which you want with your sanrensei.

Let me put it this way: there's "being a teacher in order to teach the student what he 'needs' to know" , and there's "being a teacher to encourage the student's learning".

Of course, knowing whether the pincer is good or bad may have little to do with improvement, in terms of knowledge.

But if you extinguish the student's interest by telling him the question he's interested in is not useful, where have you really gotten?

The OP did NOT ask for general advise on how to improve, and I fail to see why it should be forced upon him.

_________________
be immersed

I think there's an unspoken assumption that if you're asking questions about moves in your games here, you're interested in them because you'd like to improve. I'd make an exception for cases like "Is this position seki?" and the like, but that's not what was asked here. I agree that it's polite to also answer the direct question, but sometimes the best answer is that the question doesn't matter.

Woah, mountains and molehills! I never said we shouldn't talk about the pincer (and even if I did you could all just ignore me as I am not the dictator of L19), but rather I didn't see much point writing several pages and a dozen diagrams of dan-level (or at least low sdk) discussion of the pros and cons of the different pincers when there were much more basic mistakes like atari -> opponent should connect but doesn't -> you don't capture. Or not quite so basic but still a lot lower level than the pincer choice of not playing the hane in the corner for 23 as Joaz pointed out. I wanted to see the OPs thoughts on what happened after the pincer if he got the result he wanted from the pincer or he thought he made some mistake afterwards. If he wanted to make a wall across the left (along D file or so) which seems to be his plan from the d14 attach then I could talk about moves other than a pincer that do that, or how the tighter pincers make blocking the top side more reasonable after a white 3-3. But then again white didn't 3-3 but attach. Was that a surprise? Does he think it was a mistake. Does he think his answer was a mistake?



I don't see anyone doing that, and also he did say:

Also when I said the rest of the moves were worse than any pincer that's not true as some of the moves were perfect, but I was exaggerating for effect. But to give an idea of how minor a mistake the pincer choice is (if it is indeed one which I think it probably is but I'm not so sure I wouldn't be surprised if a player strong than me said it was fine), here is my quick hand-waving estimation of how many points each move loses:

b1: 0
w2: 0
b3: 0
w4: 0
b5: 0
w6: 0
b7: 0.5 (unusual yes, but is it bad?)
w8: 5
b9: 0
w10: 3
b11: 3 (it might not actually be so bad but is complicated, and p4 is easy and good)
w12: 6
b13: 3
w14: 7
b15: 3
w16: 6
b17: 0
w18: 1
b19: 2
w20: 0
b21: 1?
w22: 2
b23: 4
w24: 0
b25: 0
w26: 8
b27: 10
w28: 7
b29: ??? what is going on?! maybe this is actually the best move now.
w30: 0
b31: 0

P.S. I wonder how these numbers compare in realtive terms to the delta CrazyStone's analysis tool gives you for the difference in winning probability of your move versus the bot's preferred one.

FWIW, I think that the pincer is fine, although not a common choice. For one thing, it is the last "big play" of the opening, and works with the Black K-06 stone.

As for the choice between pincers, IMO the K-06 stone makes that question pretty much straining after gnats. Except, perhaps at the highest level of play. For instance, suppose that Black makes the low one space pincer, White jumps out and then presses down on the Black pincer stone. The K-06 stone is well placed to reduce the influence of the resulting White wall. It works with any pincer, which means that any pincer works with it, and that makes the differences between them less significant than otherwise. IMO.

As everybody says, Black's problems came before and after the pincer.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

As black I would push and cut to punish white for playing that press without the ladder

Looks like I am in the minority with my opinion on teaching style. Different teachers, as well as different students might have different preferences on how teaching should happen.

Nonetheless, based on the OP's own post, to which I responded, my feeling is that the response given wasn't 100% well received:


Maybe I am misinterpreting his feeling here, but if not, I don't think that the "teaching method" here was matching with this particular "student".

_________________
be immersed