This is a game that I lost against a 6d with 8 handi stones.
That means that I have made at least 8 major mistakes worth a handi stone each.

Yes, it was a great teaching game, but nevertheless it's frustrating to lose with such a huge amount of handi stones..

All comments are welcome.

Is the game incomplete or you resigned? The major "mistakes" I saw were mostly misreads (I assume). I'm not a good handi player, so my suggestions don't come with a lot of strength, but you have to try to stay connected as much as you can... And cut white as much as you can. White has a group spanning all the bottom, and connected through a cut almost all the top, too. Don't take this as a critique, I'm guilty of worse handicap sins

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Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

Thanks for your input.

I replayed the game with Drago to store it as SGF, so it seems to be incomplete, but actually it is complete. I lost this game on time, but it is pretty obvious that black is pretty much behind and I would have resigned anyway within the next few moves. The opponent was soooooo strong

Are you sure? How do you know it was not (8 stones/74)-mistakes spread over 74 moves?
Or, any other combinations in between?

The first move that looks questionable to my kyu-eyes is 22, which feels thin, instead of pressuring w's own thinness. Then twice, move 30 and move 40 you choose to protect territory instead of protecting your weakest stones. This proves to have been in vain as white later creepily dissects your corners. I can certainly empathize with your frustration, but on the other hand, white offers us some great examples of how to rob banks.

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Patience, grasshopper.

I've tried to illustrate where white gains points from important mistakes. The three main ideas in the area I covered before running out of time are:
- Move 22 is powerful. They way you follow it up is antipowerful.
- Moves like move 40 are big. Are you sure the top right isn't bigger?
- Move 42 is a terrible shape move, even if it saves your stone. Think about playing more powerfully, even if it seems riskier.

n3 = please separate my stones.
l9 = please separate my stones.

Thanks amnal, that was helpful.

So much for my kyu eyes

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Patience, grasshopper.

Maybe "the ABC of attack and Defense" of Michael Redmond applies here for your move 6.
I copied some of his variants into the sgf.
All later comments and variations are Amnal's. I liked them a lot.

Without looking at the game, the rank difference suggests that the handicap was insufficient. You were supposed to lose. You might actually have lost by less than you should have. I remember taking four stones from a 2 dan and losing by only 40 points. I was thrilled! (I was a DDK then. )

Also, it is probably not the case that you made at least 8 errors worth a stone each. To lose with 8 stones, an average error of 1 point per move will do. OC, we do not expect the errors to even out, but you could easily have made only a few errors greater than 5 points, with no errors as large as a handicap stone.

OC, recognizing and eliminating large errors is good. But there is also the idea of playing up to yourself. Difficult fights which are beyond your ability can lead to large errors. But if you can avoid errors that are within your ability not to make, if you play up to yourself, you will be hard to beat. In a game last year I misread a semeai, leading to a sizable loss, but I still won by 8 points.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

L9, N3, G6, G5, E2, M16, L17, N17, H3.

You are supposed to lose even with 9 stones when your opponent is 12 stones stronger.

I tend to disagree with Bill: Your problem is not that there is fighting in the game where you may misread, the problem is that you let White decide where the fights are. I would blame coffee break moves like E2, your opening moves were pretty good but they are only as good as their follow up. There is no quick fix for reading, playing the right attacking move etc., but when you decide where it is suitable for you to fight, you will be surprised how much easier reading gets. In fact, I believe you were afraid to pick fights with the opponent, given he is so much stronger, which enabled him to pick the fights where he wanted.

OK, now I have looked at the game. Some comments on the early play.



Main focus:

Make a plan. Do not let White dictate play.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Thanks Bill! That was very insightful. Regarding the weak stones at the bottom left I made the wrong plan. I thought I could abandon them and make territory at the left side by trying to reactivate the stones. But turning the weak stones into strong attacking stones was a real eye opener.

De nada.

White can complicate that last variation. In particular, after Black plays the knight's move, a White jump to G-06 instead of saving the White stones right away looks better than what I showed. But attacking White's weakness is still a good idea.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I will echo what tapir and Bill said: Take control! Play your own game, not your opponent's!

Not too long ago, I gained a stone in strength when I realized I could take sente against players stronger than me and that I didn't have to follow them around the board. That is, when I consciously put it into practice, rather than simply knowing it abstractly. Even against players many stones stronger than me, if I can get sente to attack a group that my opponent left a little too weak or too thin, I can sometimes win the resulting fight, and it's really fun when that happens.

But even if you can't score a clear victory in the fight, by attacking, you can often settle the shape by forcing a stronger player to choose how to save or sacrifice a group earlier than they would have liked. This simplifies the position, especially if you got some thickness out of it, which can help greatly when figuring out what your next target should be.

One of my favorite ways to take sente is with the variation Bill showed on move 8. If there is a weak group or something else urgent on the board, it's perfectly fine to tenuki the low approach in order to take back the flow of the game. And if the opponent follows with a double low approach, the option to kosumi and then tenuki *again* can be really nice. Just make sure that when you take sente and attack, you're attacking something important - don't settle for snipping off a few small stones here or there.

Of course white might try some tricks like below

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c Overplay to keep situation urgent and discourage tenuki
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . 1 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 . . 2 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

Another tip which can really help handicap games is: be prepared to go for large trades (one of Bill's diagrams had a big trade). The great thing about trades is they settle large areas of the board (of course white might not agree with the trade and try funny business!). Even if the trade is slightly better for white, say he gets 50 points and you 40 points, that is a large amount of the board settled so there is less space for him to catch up the rest of the handicap stones. I saw this just last week at the club: I lost a 5 stone game against someone I would usually beat. Why? Because we had a huge trade in the early middlegame that settled almost half the board. The trade was good for me locally, but it meant there wasn't much game left for me to catch up the rest of the handicap stones.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . 5 . . X . . . 3 . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . a . . . . . 6 . . . . . 4 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

In the game B played at a. From Michael Redmond´s ABC for Attack and Defence I learned to defend the weakest stone. After the center handicap stone has only one escape route open, the one to the center. The left handicap stone has both the escape route to the center and to the left side open. So it is not the weakest one. If I understand Redmond correctly B should jump to in the center instead of a.

cyclops, both in the game (D14) or jump from the center B stone (K14) are OK, no problem.
B's mistakes happened later, not here. is not the problem.
Reality check: White has TWO weak groups, while B has NONE (neither D16 nor K16 is weak; both are OK).
So as long as B can handle the K16 stone (which he can, if played correctly), then is no problem.
(In fact, B has many other choices for , all OK, because of the high handicap.)

(In other words, correct reading and judgement -- that K16 will be OK, that B can get a good result both locally and globally --
supersede general guidelines/proverbs.)