This was me vs a 1D on KGS. He started immediately by chasing a group in one corner while the other three were empty. I tenukied to grab territory in another corner, and then ran toward it. He cut me off. I ran a bit, then tenukied to another corner, and ran for safety there. He cut me off again. I tenukied to grab some more territory in the last remaining corner, and then ran toward it. He cut me off again. Then the fighting started.

Any comments on improving my game would be welcome. I was black.

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Any reason not to play P3 on move 5? Did you want to have a more solid wall?

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be immersed

Also, 221 seems kind of like a pass. By the way, it might be easier to review a game that you lost.

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5: I assume you were going for sente or similar here, but I think the normal P3 is fine. Black's wall is better than white's territory in the normal sequence, and I think you can be okay with that. You might also be interested in O3, which is another way to take sente or force white to make your wall very strong, but again I don't think you need to think this hard.

7: Now you're pushing form behind. I think I want to push at P3 and cut, probably at Q2 to capture his stone in a ladder, though the other way transposes to joseki and seems fine, if not quite as good as sealing white in on both sides.

I'd comment on the fight, but...well, you won anyway, and white's moves were the bad ones (mostly). Well played, it's always annoying to play an opponent who plays like this.

Edit: A few comments anyway. I think you let white get away with his overplays by not playing simple moves that leave white more problems than black.

12: Seems to aim at N5, which is fair enough. Perhaps black O6 is best straight away, to just fix the problem and leave white to save his (now weak) group. Black will also be able to aim at L3 later.

13: Clearly a big move, but I don't think it is urgent. Whoever takes control of this fight will take sente later to play somewhere else, and I'd want that to be me! Again, my best idea is fixing black's shape with O6.

15: Seems like you are trying to indirectly protect the N4 cut here, but then you don't act like it later.

19: Now you skip back as if white can still cut? I assume you are trying to prevent the O6 peep for white, but in doing so you invite very bad shape yourself. If you're going to play like this, I still think you should just play O6 earlier and leave white with more problems than black.

21: So you fix half of the cuts in your shape, in return for strengthening white's shape. I think white is getting away with his earlier overplays now, black has tried too hard with S3.

Yeah, I really can't understand why you played 5 the way you did. Look at move 30 and it appears what you played was 30 points worse than the normal sequence would have been, and for what? You didn't even get sente!

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Yes. The more room that there is on the rest of the board, the more a wall is worth. But his territory is the same.



I must play 221 sooner or later. The toe bone is connected...

My dragon has one eye. The only way to live is to kill his C14 group. To do this, I must start and win the ko at A15/A16. And to do that, I have to kill his D18 stones. And I have to do all of this while my dragon has liberties to spare.



Maybe. In those games I can often find my own mistakes. But the way to really improve is to have somone show you why the moves that won - that you think were good - were really no good. I can often improve my worst play with sufficient reflection. I want someonne to improve my best play.

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Huh? The normal sequence gives you a more complete wall than the one you got (it's nearly a wall in two directions!), and leaves white with less points than he got.

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Still seems a bit early to me. I think you only need to play it once it is necessary to play it.



Interesting perspective... I don't usually find it as useful, but that might be because I don't always play my best when I am ahead.

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I don't think there's an easy way to make a wall that's bigger than the standard 3-3 invasion one. I thought your move was to try to take sente in return for a smaller wall (but white potentially doesn't get the hane at the bottom in sente). Black only gets a monodirectional wall, though.

Ok, you guys have completely trashed my first 30 moves. Thanks.
What about the rest of the game?

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Keeping in mind that I'm not all that good and prone to misreads, here's a few moves that caught my eye.

Didn't really understand the b51 b53 sequence. What was your goal here?

Was b199 necessary?
What about b203 at d11?

b221 seems just a prudent move to secure a large lead. Score at this point is around what, B+40?

After you fill A16, your dragon is completely alive. You don't need to fill the false eyes or internal liberties to capture W group because W cannot ever bring your dragon to atari from the D14 side.

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I'm a bit confused by 243 and a few of your moves after that.
It looks to me that you could have made a few points more during these moves, and especially 243 looks like a typical pass.

You have a lot of moves left that are more worth than that or am I missing something?
If you were worried that he can kill you first, then why did you play 241 in the first place?

I'm a very weak player so I could be missing some obvious things^^

Another bit of hijacking by a weaker player: can anyone explain O6?

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I think O6 is a bad move. I don't know why Joaz played it, but it's probably to prevent white peeping here if black just blocks directly.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I think this is a bad way to play, and that black should play differently earlier if he wants to attack white. O6 leaves two cuts, and forces black to improve white's shape in multiple places in order to stop these cuts working.

I think black was under time pressure. You should be confused by some of those moves, as they don't make much sense. The important thing to realize is that black has to have enough liberties to win the capturing race, and black really doesn't want to fight a ko to win it. But black can just fill D14 and E14 and then white suffers double ko death.

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The moves starting with B45 seem really strange. Just connect against the peep? If White leaves the situation alone after that, you have a target to attack. Otherwise you have sente. After the game sequence, at move 60 White has influence up the left-hand side, while Black still has bad shape in the corner.

Some comments which will hopefully help improve your game, plus a few comments for W as well. Your play is already good and solid, so most of these comments are only pointing out subtle problems, but at the dan level these become important.

I see nothing wrong with the B extension to P4 (move 5). The hane which everyone else prefers is certainly also good, possibly even better, but not enough to worry about. In any case, the W invasion seems too early, and B is off to a great start.

The exchange O4 N3 (move 7) however is bad, partly because it is pushing from behind, partly because it lessens the severity of the following keima. Without that exchange, the keima threatens a push-and-clamp which would be more painful to W than any continuation B has after the actual game sequence. If you like tewari analysis, imagine that B could replace the two stones in the game at O4 and M5 with a single stone at N5 plus a free move elsewhere on the board (assuming W plays the honte response at N3 to prevent the push-and clamp).

The W play at Q8, designed to prevent a good B extension from the wall, is a reasonable strategy, but the actual move is too close. W could better achieve his objective by playing one space farther away. B would still probably want to pincer, as extending from the wall would be over-concentrated, but then W would be able to defend much more comfortably. If W moved this stone two spaces farther away, then B might have a hard time deciding whether to pincer or to extend from the wall, a good indication that this is likely the ideal approach distance.

W compounds the problem next move by approaching even closer to the wall. Surely you realized that the last two W moves were bad, and hence B now has the advantage? When your opponent gets into trouble like this, do not let him off the hook! The B extension to R15 is nice and certainly preserves the lead, but why not attack more strongly? B has two good strategies: undercut the W base at R9 or cap at O8. Either way, you can look forward to a long and profitable attack. As MW might say, B has an opportunity here to dictate the flow of the game to his advantage.

In almost all corner positions, the hane-connect at S3 is a huge move. But surprisingly, in this position, I do not think it is very effective. It does not make or destroy eye space for either side, it is not needed to prevent a W connection, and it does not have a strong follow-up in either direction. Also, W would have a hard time playing first in this area, as any W move which helps one group hurts the other group.

Move 19 (O6) is too clever. Defending the cut directly at N5 is correct and makes the previous W move very bad. I imagine you saw that this defense worked (W cannot cut), but disliked giving W a useful peep. But since B later had to spend a full extra move defending N5, this was a false economy. If you look a little deeper, W has a serious liberty problem if B blocks directly at N5, likely requiring immediate defense. (B threatens P3 P2 O2 Q2 N2 and W cannot hane M2.)

Over the course of the next few moves, B played several weak moves and lost control of the game. By move 26, I think the position is roughly even.

At move 29, B needs to defend the cut, but it looks like he has a more active defense than the direct connection (which induces W to play a good extension). Surely part of the value of K6 was to threaten the clamp at K4? It looks like that clamp now prevents W from cutting.

Some moves are so obvious that they tend to be played by reflex. The B hane H8 (move 47) might be an example. I am not sure how much thought you put into this move, but if it was a reflex, pause to consider alternatives. Here I think the natural flow H8 G8 H9 F7 just helps W take care of his two weak stones on the left. F8 looks much better to me; if W responds around H9, B still has time to run out with the center group. If you really want to defend the center first, just jump to K10, without inducing W to strengthen his position. By move 66, something clearly went wrong for B, as now instead of two weak stones on the left, W has a large territory, while B has gained very little in compensation.

It looks like you already have a good appreciation for good shape moves. But when making a shape move, pay a little more attention, consider the likely continuation, and make sure your stones actually end up working efficiently. Move 89 (F12) looks like good shape, but when W plays hane at H14 and B feels compelled to respond at G13, it ends up misplaced. B could play H14 first to prevent this result, or F12 could be played at G11 (aiming at the freebie F10 if W does not respond). Or maybe the earlier hane at H13 was the problem, even though it looked like a nice shape move?

Consider the order of forcing moves, and avoid aji-keshi defensive moves if at all possible. When W played F2 (a delayed response to the B peep at E2), he threatened a large cut at D5. If B is going to defend, D5 looks like the correct move. Then W would have to worry about lots of aji like B7 or B8 or C8. B could also play B7 directly, since if W blocks and B draws back, the cut at D5 is protected. In the actual game, B pushed first at C6, destroying all this aji, and after the forced connection, W still had the large cut at D5.

The cut at C12 eventually won the game, when W responded by killing his own group. If W simply draws back to D11, B has nothing here. Of course it took several more W mistakes to actually kill the group.

Edit: I did not even look to see that B can push and cut at P3 after the W jump! This makes the B move at P4 even more playable. However, I amend the exchange O4-N3 from marginally bad to terrible! The game is over if you push and cut.

More trashing.



Edit: Added variation.

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Everything with love. Stay safe.

Thanks, everyone, you can all take a break now while I duct tape my ego back together. I can't believe how much I missed.

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