60: My preference would be to continue the pushing fight; staying ahead is important. If you extend twice more, you have enough liberties to hane, at which point he would be in trouble.
62: Okay, even assuming that adding a stone was absolutely sente, I really think you have to extend again now. As you see in the next few moves, it makes a huge difference.
64: Yucky situation.
68: Think about how sente works. The J8 stones are only valuable if cutting J5 and G7 apart allows you to attack one or both of them. If J5 and G7 are both healthy, then J8 is just three weak, heavy stones trapped between two enemy groups. So if you're adding a stone at J9, you must think that J9 is a huge threat. If when B plays K3 you submissively defend, (and thus allow B to make a safe group
in sente, and then return to play H9 and make that group safe too), you are basically saying "my threat was worthless." If you think your threat is worthless, then J9 is just adding one stone to a weak, heavy group that separates two safe groups.
110: Great sequence. However, I don't think your strategy should generally be "make a weak group and then capture 11 stones." That's great when it works, but I'm just saying it's not a strategy that delivers consistent results.
152: E10 illustrates the 1-2-3 principle. E10 is good if you can keep B separated. But if you will eventually need to sac either E10 or F9, E10 is no good. So instead of starting with the cut, think about the move you would be forced to play to save E10, and play that first; if he defends you get a few points in sente, if he doesn't defend you can start the cut.
160: F5 was an 8-pt gote, if you had taken it then B would have continued the ladder... I think C9 is bigger than F5 here, especially since you get to play F11 in sente first. So don't feel so bad!
164: Again, think about sente. Hopefully you saw that this move was begging your opponent to play T10, gaining a point and cutting your liberties in sente (and giving him a great reducing sequence for when he's ready to play S12), but you decided to play S10 in the hopes of forcing B to connect at S12. Right? But he doesn't connect. And then when you finally get sente again, do you capture at S12? No, of course not; there are bigger points on the board. But in that case, S10 wasn't much of a threat in the first place.
170: This is a middling ko threat, but I don't see what you gain by playing it without a ko. (In the end, of course, this move contributed to your resignation...)
196: Nice sequence.
206: Even if you can't drag your mind beyond the local situation, A13 is bigger.
208: What is the thought behind this move? I think it's 1 1/2 point... I'm probably missing something nasty. Time for a move on the right side of the board. (Perhaps the upper right corner...)
238: Good job with the ko.
244: This is greedy... he's connected, so eyes don't really matter anymore. You still have cutting points, and your corner is worth way more if can keep it connected to your center group. Q5 is good.
248: This is a small move... 7 pts in gote. Q5, on the other hand, is apparently worth a large corner.
266:
296:
There is a lesson here. 95% of good yose is counting the liberties of groups as all the dame get filled in, and figuring out sequences where you can squeeze 2 or 3 points out of your opponent in sente, or force him to play inside his own territory, or something like that, by exploiting liberty-poor groups. That's true of small groups and large groups.
So let me offer three parting thoughts:
(i) Keep track of how many liberties your groups have. If you think to yourself "how many liberties does this group have" and the only answer you can give is "a bunch", count them during your opponent's next turn. (It may take less time than you think, unfortunately...)
(ii) Think about whether your moves are sente. Specifically, think about what you would do if your opponent tenuki'ed. Would you respond locally immediately? Do you have a powerful threat that will crush him? Or would you be forced to respond to his tenuki, and follow him around the board until he gets a chance to respond to your play after grabbing tons of points elsewhere?
(iii) Try to keep track of whether your captures serve a strategic purpose (cutting/killing groups), of if they're just for points; and if they're just for points, whether they're sente or gote. The first are huge, the second are big. Gote captures, on the other hand, are easy to get excited about but frequently not as big as some bashful sente move that's hiding in the corner.
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