An 8kyu I had played against recommended trying the opening I went with, but since I'd never played it before (I rarely even open with a 3-4 point), I didn't know how to respond to his approach.




A lot of the moves that I played felt kind of sloppy, but none moreso than move 150. If I'd just gone with a one space jump that would have saved me. As I played it out I should have lost, but my opponent made a big mistake at move 175 saving my group. After that he said he had to go, so he resigned, but I was pretty far ahead after saving that group. Move 166 was also a mistake, as I had the potential to connect to my living group at the bottom, but 150 was worse I feel.

I finally moved up to 9k after winning this, but it's not overly satisfying since I made a big mistake that should have cost me the game, but I was only saved by my opponent making an equally big mistake!

Also, if you're wondering why it was an even game with a 6.5 komi, my opponent challenged me to the game and set it up. He said that he hadn't played for a few days so his rank went down from 10kyu to 11kyu. Apparently I was on his buddy list after some event that neither of us remembers, so he figured he might as well challenge me.

Edit: Looking back, if I'd gone with the one space jump, my opponent could have atari'd the one stone at L10, and then I wouldn't have had enough liberties for the net to work! So my only chance there was to attack the groups at the top, or to connect to my living group at the bottom! Darn the things you realize while walking around the house!

A few ideas. Basic shape problems:

Thanks a lot Ed, I appreciate you going over my games so often! I didn't realize my shapes had those weaknesses, except for the top left one, I don't know why I left that alone for so long. I guess some of my plays were kind of greedy, when I should have just played more solidly instead of worrying about how many points my opponent was going to make that early in the game.

Here are my comments on the opening of the game. A couple of principles to take away:

1) Don't play armpit hits
2) Don't attach to weak stones

_________________
We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

I have a question about move 174: it looks kind of desperate to try and kill the Q10 group. But to me it looks like black is fine after P8 or am I wrong here is a simple variation that saves black? Here is a diagram of what I mean:
Now if black connects, the big white Q12 group and the smaller L9 group are both under attack an the L9 will most likely die.
What I am wondering is: is there a better variation for white?

It sure was an act of desperation, I missed the proper sequence and then my opponent made a mistake which saved me. Not a good way to win! I'm pretty sure the sequence that would have saved me would have started with white 151 at Q10 rather than P9, forcing white to go down to P9 himself. Then White Q9, Black P8, White R9. After this I should be able to capture the three stones and live. It would be a pretty close game after that, but I would have much rather gone through with the proper sequence than just capitalize on a mistake.

I would have just posted a diagram for this, but the only way I know how to do it would involve me changing the diagram code for every stone that was played!

It is a good way to win, after all we are humans and humans tend to make mistakes!
And for using a new opening a win is always a good result that motivates you to keep learning more about it
Latly I changed my opening moves completely to learn the strenghts and weaknesses of the different openings, experimenting with new moves is very intertaining and sometimes frustrating

As for the diagram:
You can convert sgf to a diagram code here at sensei's: http://senseis.xmp.net/tools/sgf2diagram.php
But it does not suport variations, so be careful

I tried my best to be helpful.

Thanks Oso, I usually don't play very aggressively, so I didn't think of a lot of the variations you showed. Always good to get the opinion of someone close to your own strength as well!

Also, blade90, I'm not sure I understand how to convert them still. Do I enter the URL for the game with sgf tags like I do to post a game here? When I do that it says that the game has 0 moves played. I'm probably missing something obvious here, but I've been up since 3:45 in the morning, so I'm kind of tired!

You post the diagram code in the go tags.
For more information about diagrams see this: http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=226