That's very interesting. I pretty much always make contact moves - attacking or defending. Will have to study that a lot - that's quite a perspective shift!

Regarding descending from an Atari, it seems you can encourage your opponent to get into the following shape

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ . # O # .
$$ . O . O .
$$ . O O O .
$$ ---------[/go]

which is a dead shape. Presumably you need to have the marked stones for this to be workable, so this would only be worth pursuing if you were in this kind of situation :

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ . . O . .
$$ . O X O .
$$ . . . . .
$$ ---------[/go]

(Just stating what has already been said to get it clear in my head)

Hi mongus,

Yes.

One issue here is you don't (yet) differentiate between
good contact moves versus bad contact moves.
If a contact move is good, by all means play it.
If a contact move is bad (like in post 17), don't.

What's difficult is how to tell them apart.

( I added the red highlight. )

Hi mongus,

In the following sequence...

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W tenuki
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X 2 . . . .
$$ | . . 1 . . . . .
$$ | . . . O 4 6 . .
$$ | . . 9 8 5 7 . .
$$ | . . . 0 . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ ------------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wm11 continuing...
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X X . . . .
$$ | . . O 2 . . . .
$$ | . . 3 O X X 8 .
$$ | . . O X O O 4 .
$$ | . . 1 X 5 6 . .
$$ | . . . 7 . . . .
$$ ------------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W ...end of sequence
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X X . . . .
$$ | . . O X . . . .
$$ | . . O O X X X .
$$ | . . O . O O X .
$$ | . . O . O X . .
$$ | . . . O . . . .
$$ ------------------[/go]

Notice the cut of and the drop of .
Black planned to sacrifice not only , but also --
two stones total -- in order to get
the good sente moves , , and .
Locally, W takes the corner and B gets the outside.

You'll encounter many (more) reasons for a descent (and other moves) in your Go career.

Interesting. So in essence when you play a descend it is forcing your opponent to spend at least two moves to kill, which you can utilise to do whatever you want without being impeded.

It takes only one move to remove one stone in atari,
but when you extend, depending on the local shape,
if you gain two liberties, then
it takes more than one move to capture the string.

Related to the previous, here is a recent trap I fell into. In this game :



At Move 21, White played this move

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ | . . O O O O X . . |
$$ | . O X X X O X . . |
$$ | . . d . c X W a . |
$$ | . . . . . . b . . |
$$ +-------------------+[/go]

I couldn't believe my luck, thinking White must have made a terrible mistake. I just need to play at a and b and I will have killed that stone. Which I proceed to do.

However, whilst I was playing those two moves White was able to play c and d and kill my three stones.

Note, to redeem myself White tried a similar trap at Move 41. This time I played it correctly.

Well done!

This illustrates an important point. It is possible to learn while playing a game, regardless of winning or losing.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

To be honest, my opponent did warn me to be careful for move 41. I can't take all the credit!

Hi mongus,

I like to embed the actual text of the SGF directly here,
not a link to it, which is what you did in post 26.
I never have problems when I embed the text directly.
But others occasionally cannot display the game here;
please double check that your SGF post (26) works -- it didn't, as of this post.

It does say in the guidelines the preferred method is to link to it. But thats no good if you can't then see it. Have edited and embedded the SGF directly.

Hi mongus,

Please see toothpaste and related pages .
You made many of these shapes in your 9x9 game v. Frank.

Interesting. Guilty as charged. I am doing the exact same thing in our current game. I think I really need to rethink my whole game here. I came to this thread thinking I was just no good at counting liberties and all my mistakes came from that. But from what I've learned so far it goes much deeper than that, and most of my mistakes come from playing too close to my opponent which causes me to get into all these bad shapes and situations. I am bringing a sword to a gun fight.

To play from more of a distance is a whole new way of thinking that requires reading ahead more than one move. I think.... have to do more study.

Our understanding continues to evolve as we improve. ( True not only for Go. )

Thinking and study are good. But at your level it is possible to overthink. To be sure, you have made some mistakes in close encounters of the worst kind, but if you had not played so closely you would not have learned about those mistakes. Nor would you have learned that playing so closely was a mistake. Now that you are going to play a little further away, you will discover that sometimes you should have played more closely. Welcome to the wide world of go!

At every level you need to study your own games, which means that you need to play those games first. Record them and study them afterwards. Get reviews from stronger players.

Good luck!

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Just finished a 19x19 game today. I made a lot of mistakes. Here is the game with my comments on where I think it all went wrong for me.

A few comments.



Edit: Added variation for move 178.
Edit2: Added some more.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Thanks for the comments. I got a lot to ponder now!

Another game. This time I had a 9 stone handicap. I was crushed and dragged through the dirt in humiliation...

Hi mongus,

Basic shape. Hane at the head of two enemy stones.

Your notes here. is not a good move, nor a good idea.
The situation is not as you think -- it's an opposite of it.

Bad habit.

Tenuki and Turn, very good!

Your P18 stone is very light (small) --
you can easily discard it if necessary. No ladder problem.
You can think about how to attack this stone for profit.
( Or, you can think of other ideas to keep your lead. )

Not what you think. Your game move is OK.
Your variation is bad.

Slow. ( Your notes: not what you think. )
Can you find any better local moves ? You get confused when there's contact fight.
What are you trying to do with this inside-hane ?
What's wrong with just hane on the outside with o12 ? ( To profit the right side. )

Bad habit, bad instinct. You bump your head into W; you reduce your own liberties.

W can P14.

You're trying to remove his eye at N13. However, your move at M12 is not the only option.
Did you see or consider the other options ? ( Your notes here: Not what you think. )
You don't have to kill W to win this game.
All you need is end up with 0.5 more points than W.
Up to here, you played some misplaced stones, but overall, Black is still way ahead.
Just count how many points W has, and look at the whole board.
You can profit on the right side; you can profit on the left side.

Lost track of what's happening (confused).
W is not alive yet. You are happy to continue to reply --
example, P11, to continue to profit your right side as you attack W.

(Same note as ). You must take care of your top right group. Q11.

R11.

W is confused ( ); he gives you a chance to connect up,
but you miss it. R11.

, Lost track of the board.
On , what were you trying to do with this move ?
When W ignored , why didn't you follow up with it ?
For example, instead of your , did you see you can cut off completely ?

No humiliation at your rank.

Some comments.



Edit: I see that I have somehow managed to mess up the file. Last edit. I hope.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.