Hey all! Had a game yesterday (non-ranked, yay) and got completely owned. I always feel bad asking, but I am in major need of help here. =( The big mistakes I could see:

-What's up with move 7? I didn't realize that conceding the corner also gave him strength to go to the side.
-I thought his double kick in the lower left was friggin' awesome. Had no idea how to stop it. Probably could've at least done something.
-129 was made in panic. I just saw a way to turn what I thought was seki into a possible kill.
-I'm still wondering if my sacrifice was worth it. The way I figure it in my latest musings, the center group was worth a little more than the side.
-I never realized the D6 group was so weak. 149 somewhere else maybe could've turned the fight around.
-166 made me incredibly sad. Maybe H3 for 165?

Other random comments:

-I don't usually play 5-3, but I thought I'd try it. So went well -.-
-I thought we were about even considering my potential for center. Point 5 above was probably the biggest cause of this.
-I don't understand 232!
-You can see I'm a stupid slow player =)

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??/10,000

Don't know! Haven't been counting. Will count eventually...

Just some ideas:

move 25: don't tennuki, local area seems pretty urgent
move 57: play Q5 - P6 - R3
move 60 is a mistake for white.
move 61: I would start the ko. If white connects at P6, play P4. You have S8 as a local threat.
moves 97, 105: don't play contact moves when you're strong
move 111: Why not at N13? Looks much better for black.
move 125: start the ko at R13.
move 131: respond to the ko threat. The best W can get out of this ko is seki, so I would respond and get 2 free moves somewhere. As long as your group is alive on bottom, S14 threatens to start another ko for the W group, so W can't afford to let yo win the ko.
move 141: play B8 or C8. White can't live here, just keep him enclosed.

I agree very much with emeraldemon. I feel also that your 79 is too close to your own thickness. That is why you got overconcentrated there. I would prefer D7. Next 161 & 163 are worth to reconsider.

Interesting comments, thank you. Now that I've read your comment, emeraldemon, I have to say, that sacrifice was soo bad. =P

I don't know enough to understand the concept of overconcentration, but now that I know where I did that I can try to work out its meaning. I've probably done that tons of times before, but I've never known it till now!

Also I forgot to mention this, but I only saw 129 while white was thinking about 128, so that's why I didn't play it earlier, and I played it as soon as I saw it because I was afraid he'd play it first, and there goes my chance.

Thank you again to you both.

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??/10,000

Don't know! Haven't been counting. Will count eventually...

I have a question about why you were glad it wasn't ranked. Am I to assume that had it been ranked you would have learned nothing from it. After all, isn't the goal of every game to learn something and improve from it, regardless of whether you win or lose?

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Actually that game is something you can be proud of. You f*cked it up in the end but you first needed to lose THREE very big areas before it was a win for W. There is a long timespan in the game where you are actually with over 50 points ahead. I think the kind of mistake that costs you such a game, is that you don't see how he can make life and how he can connect. If you want to get stronger and win these games that actually already yours, you should study a lot lot lot of Tsumego (Life&Death and also Tesujis). Also just playing more will help you improve, because after getting destroyed in the same way for many times will finally hurt so much that your brain will make some conclusions to advice you better next time.

Also you can learn to get even further ahead in the opening if you learn to see the big area. A bigger area is where are
a) more free points, like a totally empty side or corner or
b) more of stones in danger.

I repeat, this game is actually your win, not your lose, Only in the end you made just 3 mistakes that gave your opponent more then 60 points altogether. Life&Death problems will help here.
1) You gave him the right bottom corner group for nothing.
2) You let him lift on the left side where he actually was dead. (this one could also be solved with playing in the bigger area. Where he made his second eye was free area where you just need to put one stone and then connect it to somewhere and he already has no chance anymore. Of course also Life&Death will help here.
3) Let him connect on the top side. Learning Tesuji will help here.

But each of these mistakes didn't let you lose. Yes! You can make a 40 points mistake and still win easily!!!! That is why I think most importantly you should focus on learning to play the bigger area. This kind of opponent will then be even more behind before he starts to kill your groups with his superior fighting skills. Also the "big ideas" can be applied to "small problems", too. Like I explained for the second mistake.

Ok, don't forget to look into the ingame comments.

Comments. I have missed some things- also, feel free to ask questions if I have not explained clearly, or if you want to know more.

edit: On reading sholvar's comments, I disagree with a few of them. In particular I deny that the high enclosure is inferior to the low enclosure and that the star point on the top side is wrong. The high enclosure is simply better in some situations, worse in others- in this case, I can't say it is worse. The star point on the top side, on the other hand, is definitely better than the 3rd line point above it, since it works better with black's central influence.
Another point is move 43 - its meaning is clearly attacking white's two stones in the corner. If we assume that r3 is a small point (it is not that small, but not large enough to play either imo) then this is surely good because white will have to play r3 or otherwise scramble for life, and it's another stone that goes with the central influence. Anyway I find it hard to call it a wrong move.

Shaddy, what's the suggested follow up to your move 63?

Shaddy thanks for commenting. I also could learn a thing or two.

One thing that I don't understand is that:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c The marked black stone increases the value of a,b a lot. And now it is white's turn, not black's.
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . a . . . . . . b . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . B , X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

Please explain why the marked stone is not in white's favor. For me he clearly is. In a glooming, big, shiny letters way. If my understanding is a mistake here, I'd really like to know. Also that is why later after the wall in the center is finished and white gets Sente I still don't see a clear win for black. I think it is favorable for black but not impossible to use this constellation to turn the tides for white.


And although I want to believe you I can not see, why 43 is a good move. This has a lot of influence on evaluating the following moves as black helping white or white helping black.
Let's look at the combination:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . . O O . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . X X . O O O O O . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . . . . X X O X X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X O O O |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X X O . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , d . B . . O X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O a . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . b . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

I think we both agree that the marked stone only has a meaning IF he is really threatening white (and thus attacking). If there is no attack there is no other meaning, right? From my point of view white has 2 ways to make life here, on a and b. And also he has a small chance to do something when he starts running at c (should he ever come into the situation by whatever stupid mistake). So I would argue that white can tenuki here and will not die. Following that B doesn't attack white. Instead he is weak himself, only having the chance to run to the center, if he should be attacked. So I think that he would allow white, to attack with d, thus reducing blacks influence while building a moyo for white.

jts- oops, that was me miscounting liberties.. nm!

sholvar-
1. My feeling is, if white plays b, black will pincer, and then white's got a weak group. White probably won't make any territory while he's trying to live, and if he decides to dive into the corner black can seal him off to the side and make a big wall. So it's not a great idea for white to immediately approach.

2. This is threatening white- though white does have two ways to live, a and b, he doesn't really want to play that b. If he did, black could get free forcing moves while white runs along the second line trying to live. It is true, white could tenuki and survive, but it'd be uncomfortable and white wouldn't want to. Your d is interesting- I cannot see a really good response for black to it (after d, if white sacrifices the two stones, he gets a good result..), so I'll agree that 43 is bad. However I think that a move around the central star point for black, maybe after he's sealed off the top, would not be bad. I like the idea of 43, it's just that d offers w a connection underneath and besides that white's two stones are easy to sacrifice. So it's not that there is no attack, the attack just doesn't gain enough. Have to run, may come back and write a bit more

The S9 capture?

Edit: Ugh, at least I'm in good company!

@Shaddy, you express it quite well. Actually these 2 are more like a lot of Aji. I also wouldn't consider bringing them forcefully to life. That's what I like about go. The ability to do X can be used to your advantage even if you never do X itself.

Wow, so many helpful comments while I've been at work! =) Let's see if I can get to most of 'em.

@sholvar and Shaddy: Reading your comments, I think white may have been taking it easy on me. A couple of your suggestions seem like such no-brainers after you've pointed it out. I guess the problem is seeing it in the middle of a game. Funny you mention 89 - that was actually a misclick. It was also especially helpful to know how badly I handled those invasions. I knew that's what lost me the game. The left side one had no right to live. I almost always panic when I see those ridiculous overplays because I feel like I'm missing something. sholvar, thank you for the advice about small vs. big. I'll try to apply that to good effect next game. Anyways, it was very helpful to read a discussion between two higher level players!

Yeesh, the d response to 43 looks bad for me. I guess 43 probably wasn't the best of my ideas that game...

@DrStraw: Just a little joke. The forum required a subject title, so there you go. I myself believe you learn more from a lost game than a won one. My original goal was to lose a lot of games, but that lead to sloppy play. Still, I like it when I lose (my opponent was way better), because I learn more than when I win (my opponent made just as many mistakes as me).

@hoshizora: It's white's move, so he'd just capture the two stones on the bottom?

Does anyone have any good resources for learning what good aji is? Like a page of examples and explanations of why it's good? I haven't been able to grasp that concept yet. Maybe I should wait until I get better?

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??/10,000

Don't know! Haven't been counting. Will count eventually...

don't worry too much about aji yet. focus on understanding basics and reading, and after that the rest comes more naturally.

r6 is in atari

The ko at move 129 was large, so spotting it was good on your part, but you seem to have misunderstood its significance, and you misplayed the continuation. You had some trouble judging ko situations throughout the game, so spending some time analyzing this one would be a good exercise.

The important thing to realize about this particular ko is that it is a "flower-viewing" ko, which is a burden only for W. If B wins the ko, he captures the center stones, but if W wins the ko the center remains seki, so B loses nothing. Actually, the risk for W is much larger than this, since B should win the ko by capturing at S14 (instead of the game move P10). Please verify that this capture leaves the W center dead, with no need to play the actual capturing moves anytime soon.

Reading a little further, if W ignores the B capture at S14 (to make good on his ko threat for example), then B can capture again at S16. This last capture is huge, as it leaves the W side group dead, provided the B lower right corner is still alive. So really the only conceivable ko threats W has are threats against the lower right group.

B should patiently answer any real W ko threats in the corner, since he has no need to risk anything. The profit B would obtain just by getting two free moves somewhere else on the board exceeds the profit obtained by trading groups. In this game, the B corner is actually larger than the W center (exercise -- try counting the difference), so B turned a flower-viewing ko into a loss of points.

Finally, if you look closely, W really has no ko threats to kill the B corner. In the game, B captured the W center stones with move 133, but that move was basically a pass, since it was already too late for W to prevent this capture. If instead B captured at T7, the corner would be alive, and B would have captured the W center stones for free.