Life In 19x19

Hey, that's me!

I played alright at the start of this game but it devolved badly pretty quickly :cry:

There was one really interesting point in the game, right after I played here:

$$Wcm32 W tries to get eyeshape in the corner ...

As a disclaimer, I speak from piano (and carillon) background, not violin, and I haven't heard the performance you're talking about. I use only guesses I can project from the perspective of the sniffy classical piano musicians I know (including myself sometimes).

All the young prodigy pianists I've ...

1) KataGo suggests that there is only one best move and every other move is at least 1 point worse.

I take it you mean 1 board point, not 1 percentage point. :)

Yes, 1 "real" point. :D


For human players (with limited abilities compared to AI), there are other things to consider when faced ...

Almost all of my students have eventually asked me, "What am I supposed to read during my game?"

It's one of the hardest questions for me. I can give a few general principles, some examples of what sequences I would read at various points in their game, but often I wish I could give a more ...

Sorry, still thinking, game is really hard right now.

In the meantime, I just came across this video on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJzZBacUl7c

I'm pretty sure that the video is mistitled - seems like it should be Ryan Li, not Eric Lui. With the blindfold, I have no idea whether it's ...

I like it, but my goodness that downside seems really small. If it's like regular go that the average opening move is 14 points, then I should play 12 moves per move, or until they get noticeably too small?
So black's best first move looks something like this:
$$Wc White to play, B down 90 points ...

Move coming by Monday.

Comments:

With the time since the last move, it may appear that I've been distracted from the game, but I really haven't. Almost every day since the last move, I've taken at least 5 minutes to try to find an idea here. Multiple moves seem so close to working that I get this ...

Actually, there’s two different moves that work for black after white 2.
My question is: which one is better? I’m not quite sure which leaves less aji.

Hint:

2-12
B12

Hane.
Threat to kill.

I’m still trying to figure out what to do on my next move. If I sacrifice my 3-8 stones with a move like 3-11 this still was okay, though not game winning. Hopefully I can find a nicer way, though. The aji up here can’t be useful for more than this hane, so I’m ...

3-13
C13

Turn.
Threat to kill.

I’m rather embarrassed, I only noticed later last night that my previous exchange allowed him to cut by push 5-14 and wedge at 6-13. I’d thought I had one more line of free space and could ladder it, but that’s running into his 3-10 stone. So, uh, it’s gonna be fun ...

4-14
D14

Sorry, taking some time to go through the moves again.
Connect.
Threat to kill.

I’m going back through the game and mentally marking down the endgame continuations as I do. It’s maybe a little unpure, since I wasn’t taking such rigorous notice the first time through, but I’m no longer ...

a7 was in my search space, mostly because I paused the video for a minute specifically searching for something interesting to play. Actually, the move feels relatively normal to me, as far as tesuji go. I think if I still had comfortable enough main time in a game, I’d probably find it, just like I ...

4-13
D13

I’ll do my best to hurry it along. Since it’s so close and there’s only a little endgame, you don’t mind trying to bring this game to a real conclusion, do you?
Two space jump.
Shoulder hit.

I really didn’t expect this move from him. I think he can’t disconnect this reducing move, and ...

Sorry for the wait! I’m finally not busy again.

7-13
G-13

Extend.

It’s been a while. I haven’t actually reread through the moves, only his last one to make sure we are where I thought we were. I’ve been occasionally glancing at this position in my head, trying to find a trap to set. In all those ...

Congrats!

Are there any particular moments from your journey that stand out to you right now? I've forgotten a lot of the flashes of inspiration that I had as a kyu, and I really wish I wrote them down somewhere. All your future inspirations will be dan-level!