Not to rain on anyone's parade but as go is a two-player-game Black's play in the handicap game was a direct result of White's play. And as far as handicap go goes, White's play was highly unimaginative (and as a similar handicap player myself, I know what I talk about :p).

Taking gote with no follow-ups on multiple occaisons, fixing shapes early and most importantly not posing any difficulties to Black or even asking questions about groups or connections.

That being said: Black's strategy starting with was consistently follow-up and worked in the end, kudos to that! And move 156 was certainly a superb find.

By my estimate White managed to catch up one handicap stone by the start of endgame but then ramped up its game heavily and got all the big points to almost caught up the rest of them. Almost meaning Black would have won with at least Komi, anyway (that's my best guess ; )).

Some comments because I do find a couple of noteworthy moves ; )

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

The hane at L-06 is also good, as is the eye stealing tesuji at O-08.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

New updates came in.

So I've played against the same club player which I posted in the beginning of this thread yesterday in our league. He is now way stronger that he was before (about 2-3D now). I've missed a lot of progress during these period so the league system had me taking 4 stones handicap and I got rolled over.

We've reviewed the technical parts and he is very experienced with the tricks and techniques. He worked very hard, played lots of games during these period and got a teacher too. That made me believe if I'd been working hard the right way I too can get to Dan level.

I'm looking at a mentality fix because I was amazed how he got the center territory nicely, which kinda resonates with how I won my game against the Singapore 3Dan which I forgot how I'd managed to do it.

So I'm looking for review with opinions/comments on how I should change the way I look at my Go games.
Somehow I think it was my overall strategy that got it all wrong, my direction of play has issues.
In this game I find that I've missed out many vital points and my stones just doesn't seem to work together.

Some side notes:-
1. During the game, I dug myself a hole thinking at 4 handicaps securing the corner is enough. Maybe I was wrong...?
2. During review, I noticed all my stones are on themselves and there were no connections and I think it was duer to my wrong strategy in the beginning which made me got into the absurd situation
3. I often heard my club Dan players to tell us Kyus to master the basics, what are the basics? And they often mention "Go out into center", and "Connect your stones", it felt like it has to do with "Direction of Play", but it's too abstract that I still don't really get it to apply into my games. Can any Dan players here share about your personal experience on Direction of Play and the Basics?
4. I actually have the tendency to be comfortable with secured points and neglecting that my opponent is building moyo / influence, then I got myself into trouble because I need to do deep invasions and try to be a hero to neutralize the influences, then got beat up or if I lucky I got away with a win.

A few comments.



Main focus: Shape and tesuji.

Also: Cut sector lines.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.