blindgod, after you've tried to solve mitsun's problem:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . X . . . |
$$ . . O X . . . . |
$$ . . O O X X . . |
$$ . O X X O O X . |
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . 1 X O . . . |
$$ . . . . . O . . |
$$[/go]

I think this is the answer, but I can't really take any credit because it's very similar to a problem in GGP vol. 2 that I encountered yesterday. I didn't get it correct when I came across it in the book.

Went to the library intending to get Opening Theory Made Easy, only to find it checked out and not due back until 7/18. Got Second Book of Go instead.

On the contrary, you should take credit for having learned this pattern from the book.
And now you know that it has occurred at least once in an actual game of yours.
Hopefully from now on you will regularly spot this tesuji in real games

Well, I was lazy and didn't do any problems from GGP vol 2 or 1001 L&D over the weekend. I did, however, go through all 200 opening problems on GoChild, getting 164 correct. I feel like the way those problems were set up might be helpful, as it gives a number of possible moves and you have to choose the best one. This often happens to me in my games where I can see about 3 moves I want to play and have a difficult time deciding when none are urgent, need-to-play-now type moves.

Will be back to my problem books this evening.

Played two games on KGS, both of which were frustrating. I was playing white in handicap games in both. The first quickly devolved into a fighting game where I played badly and resigned as my opponent was getting territory from our fighting and I wasn't getting anything. This is no good; I can't just get anxious and fall apart during these kind of games.

The second game was one that went on far too long. I wanted to end it quickly, so I kept capturing groups hoping that my opponent would resign. Eventually I had to prod him and and he passed and I won. However, the game was so one-sided that I feel worse having played it.

I was hoping to have a game I could put up for review, but both were so bad that the only appropriate commentary is <facepalm>.

Last night I did problems 81-110 in GGP vol 2 with 25 correct and problems 61-70 in 1001 L&D with 6 correct.

I thought about it and realized that I was being a bit silly by not wanting to post the game I lost badly. I think that I have great potential to learn from this game seeing as how it's a style of game I seem to have problems with. Any and all feedback is appreciated.

You didn't need to resign. You cant be discouraged if the board looks bad for you when you're giving handicap. (think how bad it looked after move 1!) one way to look at this is, the top is settled and you each got a corner and part of the side; now it is time to turn to the bottom. I would also be hopeful about my chances of killing or reducing the upper right. Time permitting, I'll give an actual review later.

Move 4: the 33 is still open, as is approaching at 2-4 or 2-5. B wanted Q14 or P14 I think.
Move 5: Jump back and make a base at K16 or K17. I got the feeling you felt very pressured to make life and that would have given you lots of breathing room.
Move 17: Connect at J16. The ladder is favorable for W so you can kill his 4 stones on the bottom this way.

Try to settle your groups before going on the attack. You got into this position because you kept reducing the corner instead of securing the base for your O17 stones. Can’t hit very hard standing on one leg and all.(as an aside, attacking to settle/gain strength is ok as well. Just not on this board.

And jts is right, no need to resign here. B D15 stones are attackable, and the 3 sides of the board still have room for development. (the bottom is biggest)

Sorry for the text block but my computer wasn't cooperating with sgf files.

Some diagrams to illustrate move 17.


I'm not that strong though so take what I say with a grain of salt

Comments:


Just as a stylistic point, people tend to jump around the board in high handicap games. Basically, since W is behind in every part of the board, he can never go wrong by ignoring B's latest move (B will be especially shocked if his move was an atari!) and trying to get sente elsewhere. I, like you, prefer to play out the situation on each part of the board before moving on to the next, but you should experiment with the other way.

If anyone's interested, I've got two games going in the 1-on-1 Malkovitch game subforum. Games #168 & 169. I've continued working on GGP vol2 this week, doing problems 111-160 with 40 correct. I got a copy of Get Strong at Tesuji, so I'll be starting on that soon. Haven't really had time to play on KGS this week other than Monday, which is part of the reason I'm doing the Malkovitch games. As with my other games, any feedback on those is always appreciated.

Man, it's hot outside.

So I've done problems 71-90 with 14 correct in 1001 L&D and 161-190 in GGP vol 2 with 21 correct. As before, the problems based almost entirely on reading have been giving me the most trouble.

This is from my Malkovitch game with EdLee (I'm black). I made these comments in the game, but I wanted to put them here as well for the reasons below. In the game, I put my comments under a spoiler tag, but I've decided to put them openly here.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm13
$$ -----------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . . . |
$$ | . . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 1 O . . . . . , . . . . O , X . . |
$$ | . . X X . X . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ -----------------------------------------[/go]

So after yelling at my computer long enough to make me feel better (but not so long as to compel my co-workers ask questions), I'm playing what I feel is the only reasonable response to W14. White has a number of very good follow-ups, but that's my fault at the end of the day. B13 & W14 actually illustrates one of the many problems I have with this game. On the one hand, I've had a lot of people (both online and in person) stress to me that I need to better protect my weak groups. At the same time, I've also been criticized for playing small while letting my opponent play bigger. After W12, the black group on the bottom left didn't look safe to me and so I played B13 to make certain it was. I expected white to extend from the wall facing his 4-4 stone at the top, at which point I was going to play W14 or attach under the white stone approaching the black 3-4 stone.

This points out an issue I've been having with this game. With the amount of time between moves, I'll run through a number of different possibilities for each one of the moves I could make on an SGF editor. I'll then play the one that seems to yield the best results. However, a natural stumbling block is that since white is much stronger than I am, I can't really trust my own judgement of what moves he might make.

For my own reference, for move 13, I seriously considered the following:

B5, B6, B7, E4, G5, Q5, Q6, & P3.

For move 15, I considered the following:

Q5, R6.

If there's anyone willing to give feedback on these options (if only just one of them), I'd be thankful.

Obviously if Ed objects to any of these suggestions on the grounds that the game is ongoing, I can delete them. But I think the decisive moment has passed, so we're safe.

Ignoring P5 initially was strong.

For , I would have switched back to the lower right corner, but adding another move in the lower left can't be that bad; however, purely from a technical point of view, your leaves a weakness that I wouldn't expect you to be able to see. B6 looks better to me - but even here, I could be wrong (saying that not to be humble, to emphasize that your play is not so far off-track).

A hidden comment for later:


If I were playing in the lower right, P3, Q4, and Q5 all seem playable. However, I would strongly prefer P3; of those three, Q4 and Q5 seem like specialized tools. whereas P3 is a work horse. I would also look at pincers: the 3-4 stone is all about pincering approach stones, but it seems you didn't consider any? N3, for instance, is a pretty common (most common?) way to pincer R4. I won't comment on yet, other than to say, be strong!

To be clear, I'm not asking what I should do next or in the future of this game (nor would I). I'm asking for feedback on moves already committed to. I can't imagine anyone thinking that this is grounds for complaint, especially in a casual game (as opposed to a tournament or a game that determines rank). When I play at the club, I sometimes ask for thoughts and feedback on moves with the understanding that I'm not going to change them or take them back. Heck, sometimes I get feedback whether I ask for it or not.

I wasn't implying that you were asking for help, of course. But some of the moves you could have played instead of or would still be good moves now, or will be soon.

Fair enough. For what it's worth, I do see a potential weakness for me in the lower left hand corner after move 13, but I don't know if it's what you see and I don't feel it's appropriate being more specific.

On another note, in the mail today was my copy of Falling Hard: A Journey Into the World of Judo. Finally, something to read other than Go books. This should be a good change of pace.

Realize I've been slacking off writing here despite the fact that I'm continuing through my problem books. Now that I have two games going in the Malkovitch forum (and one more as soon as I can work out the details), I've actually been spending a lot of time on those. However, I think I've been going about these in the wrong manner.

I've been using an sgf editor for some of the moves, trying things out and seeing how they played. While this is fine, I'm not entirely convinced that this practice will translate into more skill in games where 1. I don't have 15-30 minutes per move and 2. I'd need to rely on my own reading to see where things go. As such, I'm stopping this practice and from here on out, I will only do reading in my head. I won't rush moves as taking time for each is, I feel, part of a turn-based game.

To further my experience, I will make myself play more normally timed games, both on KGS (where I haven't played much recently) and at the club, where I've taken the last two weeks off due to starting to fall asleep on the drive into town. It makes me nervous that I'm so tired at 5 pm that I have a hard time driving and I don't cherish the thought of having to make the hour-long drive home at 8:30 pm or 9.

However, one of the main reasons I go to the club is for the social aspect of playing there. I actually enjoy that more than playing itself, which is part of why I don't play online as much as I should in order to make the progress I desire.

Which is why I'll be going to my first two tournaments in the upcoming 30 days or so. I'll take records and I'll be interested to see how I do, especially playing live against people I don't know. I'm curious how I'll set my rank, which seems to fluctuate between around 16k-22k depending on how I'm feeling.

Firstly, Good luck at the tournaments!

I've been playing both my Malkovitch game with Wanderling. I think the benefit of such games comes from having to record your thoughts before committing to your move. Not from spending alot of time finding/reading the best move, although to keep the game fun that is encouraged.

Perhaps liken it to training your bodies endurance vs instantaneous power. Reading in your head, problem sets, and real time games are power. Studying theory and identifying conceptual problems is endurance. Your not going to sprint a marathon, or jog a 100m dash. Likewise you wouldn't train for both events the same way.(I think, don't run races myself) This analogy isn't quite perfect. But I thought I would share my 2c based on my impressions of malkovitch games.

I'm not trying to discourge you from reading in your head. But the format of malkovitch games lends unique opportunities for spotting conceptual problems in ones play. Or thats the impression I've gotten so far. I'm hardly an old hand at them.

Was going to go to the club tonight but decided not to considering that I would have had to walk back and forth in almost 100 degree heat.

Looking at my Malkovitch games, I'm reminded of a Simpsons episode where someone sees Bart playing chess in the park and marvels that he's playing against 3 people. Right after this is said, each of Bart's opponents makes a move and says (in rapid succession) "Checkmate." "Checkmate." "Checkmate." Second Simpson's reference of the day.

Have been continuing with Graded Go Problems vol 2. I'm up to problem 230 or so and I noticed that once I got over 200, my correct answer percentage went way down. This is slightly encouraging to me as this has in the past happened around problem 150-170 or so. Again, my worst performance is in life&death (though that's gotten somewhat better) and capturing races (still not good).

Have finished up through problem 250 in Graded Go Problems for Beginners vol 2 with 199 correct. This gives me a 79.6% correct, which is slightly short of the 80% I was looking for. In order to get 80% overall correct, I need to get 63 correct out of the final 77 problems.

One thing I noticed was that even the more difficult Life and Death problems seemed relatively easy compared to the problems in 1001 L&D, and I was able to breeze through them quickly with with almost no mistakes.

Ignore the comments at the end. I was trying to load the game in the KGS Teaching Ladder, but was having difficulty since a spectator was still "in" the game.

My own thoughts:

Moves 10-20: I felt almost completely lost with no real sense of what I should be doing. This is illustrated by the amount of time taken for moves 10, 16, & 20.

Move 50: Not useful. Would have been better at N13 or F9.

Move 64: Would have been better at N13.

Move 82: Probably not as severe as I could have been. However, I was determined to play a peaceful game because I'm terrible at fighting and I really wanted to win.

Move 94: Should have been at L16, M16, or M15. I think L16 would've been best since I had just enough liberties to avoid snapback.

Move 104: Embarrassing. I didn't see the oiotoshi until the moment I played. Should have been at M15.

Move 110: Should have been at R3. As silly as it seems, with everything going at the top, I forgot about the bottom right. This has been an issue in other games: tunnel-vision. I think it has to do with the adrenaline rush I get when playing online.

Move 118: Intentional sacrifice. I thought about playing S5, but didn't like the possibility of the cut at R5 since I wanted to keep things as simple as possible (as described in my comments on move 82). I was expecting the following:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$. . . . . . . . .|
$$. . . . . . . . .|
$$. . . . . . . . .|
$$. . . . . . . . .|
$$. . . . . . 5 3 .|
$$. . . . . X X O .|
$$. . . . X O O 1 4|
$$. . . . . . . 2 .|
$$. . . . . . . . .|
$$ ------------------[/go]

This way, he lives small and is contained without the cut at R5. Since I wasn't confident that I could kill him, I considered this to be the best outcome for me.

Of course, if I had played R3 earlier, this wouldn't have been an issue.

Move 130: Should have been at E6.

Move 146: Not sure if necessary.