I'm not feeling very good about this game.

I think the opening was a bit comfortable for black so I took some risks for balancing the territory and suffered by leaving thin aji everywhere. Now, it's a chaotic fight(yay! ) to decide the outcome. If black settles for an exchange - his lower side for my sente, then we may reach endgame. It depends on the strength of my dragon if I can take the sente or not.

I'm curious, what are the observers thoughts on the game at this point?

Fun game, keep it going.

This should also be sente.

This protects from a possible cut at n5 and helps prepare to continue the fight in the center.

I feel like this game hasn't gone how I'd like it to have gone either. Not sure exactly where I went wrong, but I'm not happy with it at this point. I have a bad habit of attacking too hard, so after the game, I'll be interested to hear from stronger players if I should have made a point to profit over just pushing weak white stones around without a clear goal. I kind of feel that's what happened here and he got to split up the bottom very easily as well as likely make some territory in a few spots. The worst part is that I still have to make sure that my group on the bottom is alive. :/ Seems like something I should have been able to avoid.

This board is a mess.. it's actually kind of hard for me to look at, there's so much bad shape.

I'm pretty happy with the result. Black isn't in great shape on either side. Black went very wrong somewhere because the starting fight looked too hard for white to handle. Next, I think black will try to destroy my shape with m5, then j8, then l11. Luckily, my corner group can live but it will be in gote.

I'm not feeling great about this game now. It feel like it's likely that I'll end up resigning it. Oh well. I felt like I got a good start, but in a couple of places, I made some mistakes that hurt me quite a bit.

I mean, I should probably count, I guess, and maybe I'll do that sometime. But, still, not happy with this game overall.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm1 :
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . X . . . . . . O . X . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . O . . . . . , X . . |
$$ | . . . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O O . . . . . O . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . O O X X X X X . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X O X X O . O . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X O X X . O . . 8 . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . O , 5 O . . . X X . . |
$$ | . . O O X . X . b . 1 . . . . . O . . |
$$ | . . . O . . 3 2 . . . X . 4 . X O X . |
$$ | . . X . . . . X O O . . . X . X O X . |
$$ | . . . . . . X . X O a . O O O O X X . |
$$ | . . O O . . . . X . . O . . . O X . . |
$$ | . . X O . . O . . X X O X X . O O O . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . O X O X . X . X 6 . . |
$$ | . . . . X . . O . O O X 7 . . X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

I usually try not to read excessively because I view this is a way to analyze thought processes and having better reading than my normal games ruins that a bit. However, this position is ultra complicated.

My entire dragon needs to make some life, the sequence above shows some of the way's that black can ruin white's shape. I think is a sharp move after a sente move in the corner, , shortening black's liberties, seems like a good way to play. Black maybe has a cut after combining 'a' and 'b', but if I can live in the corner - I think that the outside will be OK.