See, the title's a joke, because it was one-sided and because there were 101 stones played. Get it? =P

Hey, I figure it's been a while, so I may as well post a game for review. This one was a really epic game that turned into one of the most brutal thrashings I've experienced in recent history.

And I'll start: 96 should have been at E13. I didn't even notice the possibility of the move Graham played in response.

One minor question: Can black kill if white plays D17 at the end? That's part of why I resigned so early: even if I fought a ko for D11 or played M11 to save my stones, I have very, very few solid points.

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I don't have much time, so I'll just note that...

12 feels just a bit slack. It looks better at D10 or C9 or similar.

30 at Q6 makes territory grabbing too easy for him. Something around L4 or K3 puts up a fight.

32 again feels just a bit slack. It is not a bad move, really, but since he can play B10 in sente followed by B6, he is probably alive, so capping is not as aggressive a move as it might otherwise be.


...maybe more later

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Were you really thrashed? It looks like a pretty open game with lots of strategic options open for black. How do you figure that you got thrashed?

One topic for conversation: do you think you were a little submissive? You follow up on your ko threat; W treats it as gote; you treat his move as sente and connect your four stones; then W treats your move as gote again, and you follow him again. Why make these moves if you didn't think he would respond? And if you thought he would respond and he didn't, why didn't you try to profit from his mistake?

On the subject of what a real thrashing looks like: the last time I played topazg, I lost by 212 pts

Did I really? Wow, sorry

Here's my comments, for what they're worth (I think I was pretty lucky with the game to be honest!):

Gosh, don't apologize. If I wasn't having fun, I would have resigned.

The thrashing grew in my imagination, though. It was only w+125.5

Oh, that game. Man, that was a crazy game, and it was a lot closer than you make it sound. That was intense

My take on the beginning of the game...

(What? Already!) Yep, already! Know what you want to do. This play takes the corner away from White. If you want the outside D5 makes more sense.

What does this mean for Black? White is looking for a fight. In even games this is only played from a White position in the upper left. That does not exist here. So White has two disconnected, low (i.e. potentially heavy) stones. As much as possible you want to avoid fighting, keep White disconnected, and have him settle for small groups on the sides.

As Graham says, C3 is your friend. It would anchor Black while destabilizing White. You may know that Black does not have two eyes yet after C3 (it is a well-researched part of the joseki), but that is only an issue if Black becomes completely surrounded on the outside in later play. F5 feels heavy, pushing from behind and helping White settle the bottom stones. E7 is an alternative that pros have played. If E8, Black comes out with F7 and looks for the opportunity to squeeze White on either the left or the bottom.

This looks thin. Imagine that you attacked on the lower side with J3 in the future. A White play at G5 more or less forces you to answer at the top because of the thin connection. But another stone in the gap will not help because forces the settling of the left side. Also, what would you have done if White answered this stone by attaching at E8? (if you've had too much caffeine today, you might also wonder about the immediate F7 )

Graham speculated about playing D9 at C9 but I think he must have been sleepy. That's not the topazg that I played for the last few weeks!

This feels slack. If you read Graham's comment, in retrospect Black fell in with White's plan and gave him the opportunity to tenuki here. Beyond that, the shape of the Black group with this and F8 just looks weird. I think Black would have been better off to push at G5. If Graham really wants to tenuki here, the hane at H4 is going to hurt a lot more than anything you could do in the game. If he answers, you keep sent and have the choice of pushing again (how does that saying go, "one good push deserves another"?), giving him a whack at F11, or just taking your favorite big point on the board. BTW, personally I hate aji-keshi moves like G5. In my own games I commit the besetting sin of ignoring them on general principle and failing to read out the advantages that might go along with them. So this comment is definitely a case of "Do as I say, not as I do!"

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
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52: I don't like this move, as it leaves a cut at R14. I'm not a big fan of Graham's suggested P14 either, for the cut is still at R14, and now there may be aji from Q11. The honte move looks like R14. Then you are strong everyplace, and you can slaughter R12 and S12 at your leisure.

Looking at this game, and recalling our Malkovich game, I think that you are a much better player than you believe yourself to be. In mid-game you seem to judge your opponent's positions to be stronger than they actually are, and your positions to be weaker. You then feel compelled to make excessively defensive moves at the very instant that a strong attacking move would bring out the full potential of your previous play and crush your opponent.

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Hahaha, as soon as I played D9, the C8 aji was annoying me. Was D9 fine, or do E8 and F7 have a more positive attitude (I wanted to cut properly at the time, so I didn't really want him to fix that gap of his)?

If ... two space high pincer, how would white continue ? Just out of interest. I was trying to think where I would have played , but I feel like Joaz' pincer suggestion makes the question almost moot...

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Thank you all very much for looking at the game. It's weird, I've been trying to find a balance between 'way too thin/aggressive' and 'passive'. Maybe that's what I need to better differentiate. I don't want to be starting fights and leaving aji just to do it, but I also don't want to give my opponent all of the territory on the board.

JTS: The thrashing felt legitimate, but it was more of a high-level thrashing than I normally receive. More of a "I have almost no real points and my opponent has qutie a few, and as best I can see, even if I win every fight from here on a bit more generously than I could possibly see happening, I'll still be behind. So less of a 'Oh, he just killed all of my stones' and more of a 'We're running a race and he passes me... wait a second, did he just lap me?'

I had decided to give myself a day or three to disassociate emotions from the game, hence the delay, but I do really appreciate all of the reviews. I'll do my best to play through them and learn the lessons properly. Thanks again!

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I think that D9 was bad mainly because it paints a big target on C8, you were right about that. In terms of shape I think C9 would have been better, but especially in a 3-stone game it seems too passive. Also since Black had not taken the 3-3 point, I think that it is interesting to play as aggressively as possible on the left. You can still make your bottom stones safe by playing to either side so they are not urgent yet.

The idea of cutting here might be imagining too good a result. Black has only a single stone invested in F8 so it is not difficult to give it up. I imagined E8, Black fixes the gap somehow, and White jumps out around E10. It just seemed to be on a larger scale than a more conventional extension along the side.

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21