In the bottom left, when white descended to the edge of the board, that was sente against the group. The correct attack point is at the 1-2 point.

You can find a description of the whole situation here: http://senseis.xmp.net/?J1Group

EDIT: Apparently I was beaten to the punch.

Hey guys,

So I'm not dead, just busy with school. ( Welcome back, obviously everyone here has been waiting with bated breath for your next post )

I was able to get in a KGS game last night. I now have a question mark after my rank so I know I need to play more games. (The question mark was what told you that?) I've still been playing at my local go clubs, now I'm back at my university's club. Sadly I only have 1 other player I can play regularly there now, but one of the players from the other club has been coming to those meetings occasionally so I still have another opponent. (Playing two guys that are weaker than you should really help you improve fast.)

I'll post the game from last night, but I feel like it was a free win. My opponent let me kill him in sente several times and his opening was pretty slow. (moyoaji's just lucky that he got an easy game for his first game back on the KGS.) My only real question is whether I should have played move 13 at K4/K3 instead of enclosing my corner and how to respond to white's unusual corner invasion at moves 14-18.

So here it is.


I'm now [5k?] after that game, but I don't feel that's really 5k. If and when the question mark goes away I can call myself 5k and say that this journal and part of my go career is complete. (You've got a month and a half to get on this, otherwise I'm still calling this a failure. Also, career? Really? )

Hopefully I can find more time to post and play online in the coming weeks. (Yep, definitely put school on the back burner. Heaven forbid that takes priority over games. )

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

I like playing on the bottom with actually. It's rather big and makes any approach towards your bottom 3-4 very painful for white. You don't mind losing the corner in the top right so much I think.

Maybe wrong, maybe right.

I think this should definitely be a kick.

This would avoid the white corner invasion altogether.

And it's the ideal position to kick.

but as for the corner invasion I think

R16 is a better move. Even if white tries to jump away at R13 you can leave him with a very weak group.

yeah a kick looks good. and R16 is playable so you don't get to the normal 3-3 invasion pattern since white played keima first instead of hane. And also if you block at Q18 white isn't alive yet, I think he could have hane at Q18 first getting back to the normal invasion pattern of 3-3 instead of R18 which gives him smaller space and leaving his outside stone unused. In the game it seems he got way to much from his invasion although black got thick, but could have saved part of top too. Q14 is far from R8 so black is open if it was closer at R9 then there would be narrower space. And since R8 1 space closer than if it were the chinese opening, you could probably kick (or reverse kick/shoulder hit) Q5 at R4 for . If white blocks, he becomes heavy and no base so he has to play light. And also P2 should definitely be at S2 since you have R8 very close so white doesn't get a base so easily. P2 is too easy for white and doesn't use much black's stone advantage at R8. In the end white made too many weak groups (idk why) so he lost.

Looking back I probably should have kicked at , but I had these big dreams of getting thick on the outside and then playing K4 to have an enormous box. (Delusions of turning a 200 point moyo into 200 points... ) That was why I blocked him into the corner to start with instead of letting him run toward the right and have a pathetically weak group and that was also why I didn't block white from connecting. I just wanted a bigger wall, so I was thinking if white connected I got more thickness so my influence would be greater. (Because a wall in exchange for giving your opponent what he wants is better than attacking your opponent's weak groups. )

The same thing happened in the other corner. I wanted white to take the corner so I could basically turn the upper right/center into points. However, that one I really should have kicked. I would have gotten a wall toward the top either way and then white wouldn't have had a base. (The great moyoaji, master of the stratagems everybody) As for , I know I should have descended, but I don't know the joseki well enough to defend the clamp correctly. I need to work on that one. (You knew the right move but were afraid to play it. )

As for ... I debated that move for over a minute, as you can see from the time. My justification was "corners before sides, enclosures before extensions" but I'm not sure. I feel like both are playable, but K4 would have been big, no doubt. (You're just lucky your opponent let you get both)

So yeah, I should be willing to let my opponent get some points here and there as long as I get more points than him. It only worked in this game because my opponent let me kill so many groups. If he'd made those live I would have had no points because I got way too greedy. (Okay, you've had your fun talking to folks on the Internet. Get back to schoolwork. )

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

A game I can be truly proud of!

(Even I'll give him a congratulations on this one. It was very nice. )



I used all of my knowledge about attack and defense. All I have been learning from Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go. (So you basically did what you were supposed to do and you did fine because of it. Okay, maybe it wasn't that nice. )

and - I made myself strong before attacking.

- I actually found the obvious high pincer to attack both groups.

- I attacked both of the weak groups!

- I actually saw the move to remove the eye-space my opponent was trying to generate.

Then I was in a bind after . Both groups were going to connect back. (You probably messed up somewhere to let that happen. Two weak groups and this guy almost screwed it up... )

And that was when I found perhaps the most wonderful move of my go playing career.



I don't know if it's a standard tesuji or what, but it was brilliant. There was no way for white to connect back after that and he couldn't live locally. After another 80 moves he resigned and I beat a 4k straight up.

So I'm [4k?] now. Should that mean this journal is complete? A part of me wants to end this now on such a high note as I move on toward shodan. (Just because you played a guy from Japan doesn't mean you can willy-nilly throw around Japanese Mr. "Moyoaji") Then again, until my rank stabilizes I don't know how far I've come...

I have relished this game enough. Someone show me where my opponent could have made me cry. (Oh! This is gonna be fun.)

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

Congratulations!

A few comments.



Note: See http://senseis.xmp.net/?CranesNestTesuji

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I found it. B 107 - K4 - is an overplay. Anytime after W 110, my group is in a Crane's Nest and white can play J7 and kill my stones which would probably win him the game. And unless I just give up and allow white two eyes he can punish that overplay.

There we go. That would make me cry.

(Good job on finding where your opponent needed to play to ruin your "brilliant" game. )

And Bill beat me to posting about it. (Well done, Bill.)

The reason I played the one point jump out from three was because the Crane's Nest didn't work until move 110. Before that I had a tiger's mouth protecting the lower vital point. After 110 the tiger's mouth is useless. However, I also can't let white cut me. 110 was a winning move.

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go is the most broken OP book in the known universe. The the next time the Nihon Ki-in comes out with an edition it is going to need to be nerfed so hard. (Oh gosh, he's using gamer talk. )

I just beat another 4k because he failed to read a ladder. That is literally chapter 1, lesson 1 of The Fundamentals. (Now he's using "literally" - good gracious. )

I forced got into a stupidly complex fight that I was losing until he failed to read a ladder that I had read. I hit and I stopped just playing like an idiot and tried to remember everything I knew about nets and ladders to find a way out. I saw several ways and I was sure I could get out, but then my opponent got greedy. He tried too hard to seal me in and I had 2 ladders to get me out of the horrible position I was in. On the bottom side it just barely worked, but it did. (He was still going to lose at that point though, but then...)

My opponent played it out.

My opponent played out a ladder that didn't work and let me capture all of the stones.

From that point forward the game was incredibly easy for me. I used the enormous ungodly thickness to kill his corner and massacre a good half of the bottom side. Then I killed everything he invaded with in the end and he resigned. (It should have been easy, your 4k opponent made a 30k mistake. Of course you won.)



These have been the craziest games this past week. I'm now [3k?]. I think that's probably too high. However, I might be a 4k now. I'll probably lose my next match if it is against a 2-3k player, but I can't believe how each match has gone. (Your opponents are misreading, overplaying, and helping you at every turn, but sure, call yourself a 4k. I'm sure it's true. )

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

I've seen that ladder misread before, by significantly stronger opponents, where they assume the ladder will continue with the normal zigzag pattern and break instead of being forced to the edge. It happens (both to and against you).

I know. Even pros can misread ladders. Hong Minpyo's infamous failed ladder game is a clear example. If I don't misread a ladder by the end of my go career I will be a very lucky man. (Because never misreading ladders is the be-all-end-all of go playing... )

However, that is why Kageyama emphasizes ladders so much at the start of Lessons in the Fundamentals. They are one of the few sequences in go that, given the time, anyone can read. He explains that trying to set up tricks to reading ladders will only prove destructive to your game. You just have to read them. I also thought the ladder wouldn't work. I saw the black stone on the line and almost said "Darn, I've lost this."

But I took the time to read.

And that made all the difference.

It turned a losing game into an easy win because I didn't scoff at the advice of a 7-dan professional and didn't try to just judge where the black stone was, but read what would happen when the ladder hit the stone.

I will never forget this game. There is no reason I should ever misread a ladder, because it really is simple. This game taught me that as much as the book. I just need to remember this lesson and I'm sure I will win more games because of it. (I still say you would have lost if your opponent read it out too. That position was terrible for white.)

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

Just so you don't have any misapprehensions, there are some ladders that start bouncing around, doubling back on themselves, etc. that can get pretty hairy.

I've done some tsumegos like that and it looks pretty complicated, but the ladder sequence itself is fixed. There is no deviation from the basic "all atari" sequence because if your opponent ever gets 2 liberties you will find yourself with endless cutting points and double ataris. The rule is that you must keep your opponent in atari at all times. If you can read a sequence that accomplishes that it is a successful ladder. If there is no way to get that sequence, the ladder fails. (And when you think you read that sequence but it doesn't work, then you've misread the ladder. Don't get cocky, kid. )

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

Alright, I lost my first game this week. (About time... )

I made 2 big mistakes. (Okay, tell them. This is the good stuff. )

The first was on a much larger scale than the second. The first was that I allowed my opponent to steal the side when that was clearly the area I was trying to claim. Move should have been a 3rd line stone, not 4th line - there was nothing left in the center for me. Move should have been at C14, not C17. I should have let him live in the corner and taken a big side for myself. Instead, I got no side and, later on in yose, no corner. (So your thought was "I want the side" and you played the move that said "I want the center." Then you played the one that said "I want him to be forced to make life on the side." Smooth, man. Real smooth. )

The second was juts a misread. Move 122 should not have been the atari as it would allow a net. Instead, I needed to connect back my stones to keep the white stones out of my ever-shrinking center. I got too greedy and tried to get it all. Instead, I got less than I should have. (All your big talk about the importance of reading and you make a misread. Classic moyoaji.)



I am now ranked [3k] on the KGS. Which means I've actually met my goal a month before 5 months. (Wait, what? )

I'm still not totally sure I deserve 3k, but I think I'm about 4k. I might be 5k but we'll see what happens to my rank in the coming days. (So, so now what?)

As for this thread, I'm not sure what to do. Now that I've exceeded my goal. I'm not sure if I should keep this going or start a new thread about trying to reach 1 dan. (If you start a new one I get to come with you, right?) On the one hand, I like this thread so far and I would like to keep everything together. But on the other hand both sections of the title - "to 5 kyu" and "in 5 months" - will both be no longer valid soon. (But either way I get to stick around, right? )

Any suggestions would be appreciated. (Don't I get a say in this?! )

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

Move 6 is a classic 'wrong direction' move, as white's play immediately after the joseki shows. Black's influence is negated by white's group that is alive and has its head poking out into the center. After that, taking the center is not very helpful for black. Regarding the top right, generally one should only block in that direction when there is already a stone around the side star point to back up the wall.

You are absolutely right. (Of course he is.)

I should have blocked the other way. My goal was to try to develop the top and help my hoshi stone by getting a wall and build outside influence to and work against white's takamoku stone. (Quit trying to sound fancy with the Japanese... ) Instead, because of that joseki, I really didn't get either. I needed to block the other way and use the thickness to develop the right, the side my opponent's 5-4 wants to develop. My hoshi can work to grab the left with my other one anyway. I just don't like the other block for black, but I suppose my personal preference in joseki doesn't make it better. (No, you think? )

After this I played 2 more games. The first was a horrifying loss where I wasn't able to make my group in the center survive. I could have captured some black stones to make it live, but even then I was behind by over 20 points. (Thank you for not saying "20 moku") The second was a free blitz game where I managed to kill my opponent's groups and he resigned 60 moves in. (Congratulations, you were able to see simple patterns with in 20 seconds a move. How many cookies do you want?)


Move 28 was really the losing move. I fell for the double hane. I even remember this kind of position coming up in one of Starstorm's Study Group Kyu lectures - the one on the double hane I think. Black has to pull back. I did not. Bad things happened. (Time to go back to studying then. Letting your opponent kill your wall is not going to help your thickness.) I wanted too much thickness on the top and instead got nothing but a weak group that died in the end.


Not much to say about this game. My opponent's key mistake seems to be trying to counter-attack my pincer stones when his were not safe. And then letting me kill him on the side. (That mistakes seems a bit bigger than making a weak group...)

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

You also don't have to play the pincer if you don't like Honestly, I think a one-space jump or small-knight's defense are probably fine in this case, especially if you can get white to end in gote.

Edit:
Don't worry about the takamoku just because it looks weird. It's biased, so you can always let him build up the side and then enter at 3-3 to reduce the side as well. You can also just approach from the outside, as at 5-3, to take the other side and cede the corner. Or just take a big point somewhere. If white tries to compete by trading big point for big point, white's not gaining on you so you're doing fine.

I played a game on the IGS. I had tried it out a few months ago and while the GoPanda2 client seems pretty nice, I decided to stick with KGS. IGS's client is a bit harder to use, IMO and I have no real reason to switch. Regardless, I thought I'd try playing there again now that I'm back to playing go regularly. After all, the game of go is the same regardless of what online venue it is played on. (So your preface means nothing. Now tell them how you lost. )

I made this IGS account when I was 7k on the KGS, so I put myself as 7k. However, I got beaten badly in my first two games so I think the rank may not be the same. (Maybe the IGS rank is more accurate and you're not really even a 7k player. Ever considered that? ) I signed on and got challenged before I could even remember how to start a game. (a guy from the US with a Japanese term name. They must just love you for that.)



The early game was weird and pretty bad for me. Looking back, I hate . I don't know what I was thinking to play like that. However, I was having a hard time against the dual 5-4 stones figuring out what to do.

By move 142, I was pretty sure I should just resign. I had fought hard, but clearly had lost. I poked around to 157 and was ready to call it quits when I decided to try one more thing. I had been looking at his corner group for a long while. I thought there might have been a way to kill it. So I decided to try one more thing.

I told myself that I had to either kill white straight up or just resign because that was the only way the game would even be close. And it actually worked.

Once I was back in the game I tried my best to catch up in endgame. But, by the end, white won by 4.5.

I poured everything I could into that game. I really did. I looked for every weakness. I tried every move I could think of. I just couldn't win when I was so far down. My opponent just didn't make the mistakes I needed him to. He deserved the win. There was nothing I could have done. (Hmmm... I could still go for a snarky remark, but...)

(Good effort, moyo. Better luck next time. )

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

So I have been neglecting my play on the KGS, but still playing at my local club and studying. (Remember that first post you made about stuff you were gonna do? Do you do any of that anymore?)

My studies have moved primarily to lectures and looking at pro games and tonight I was humbled by a Lee Sedol game. Not by any amazing fighting move he made or some insane tesuji only Lee Sedol could see. Instead, it was by a move that was so simple I assumed he wouldn't play it. In response to the marked stone, my gut instinct as a kyu player was to play at . However, I felt that would be too slow. White's 2 stones are in danger of being surrounded, sure. But even if black attacks them it seems pretty easy for them to link back to the corner. So I figured a move like 'a' would be better and bigger and probably what a player like Lee Sedol, who can read much better than me, would play. (Because you would know where Lee Sedol would play in a go game... )

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X X . . . O . . . . O X X . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . O . O , X . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . a , . . . . . , . . . . . , O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X X O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . X O X X O O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . B . . O X X O X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . X X O . O . . . |
$$ | . . O , . . . 1 . , O . X O . O O . . |
$$ | . . . . O . . . . . O X . X X X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

Yet is exactly what he played. And it really is so obvious. Why was I even trying to come up with a "faster" move? If black gets to attack the two stones he will split white, or get more outside thickness, or maybe even live on the side as white fights to connect around the top. I'm not strong enough to read all the possible ways black can play, but I know this much: You profit from attacking a weak group. Black is strong around the white stones. He will get something. just works. There is no cutting. There is only glorious 4th line potential so close to becoming points for white. (Glad you aren't calling it "territory" since you just read about that in your book a couple weeks ago. Speaking of which, are you going to read that book again? )

I just stared at that move for nearly a minute in aw of how beautifully simple it was. So obvious. This is what Kageyama is talking about in Lessons. "Strong" amateurs just over-think moves that really need no thought yet play "good" or "obvious" moves immediately because they think they understand them. That is not to say that my idea of 'a' was stupid or totally wrong. Black's next move was 1 point below 'a' so I had the correct direction of play in mind. However, Lee Sedol's move is just better. (So... moral of the story is that a pro is better than you? Did you really need some big "revelation" to know that one? )

I have been assuming that to get stronger I need to play the bigger moves. To make sure I tenuki more. I think I do need to tenuki more, but I need to do it at the right time. Not when I'm about to be attacked. "Make yourself strong before attacking" is an important rule. If I want to get better I need to keep sticking to the fundamentals. To make note of the big moves, sure, but not miss playing the urgent ones. (Urgent before big and such, but again, was this really a big deal? You knew that right?)

This may seem so obvious, even to me, but the fact that I made the mistake of seeing the right move and then wanting to play elsewhere concerned me, because I could have been right. It's like when you realize that your second guess on a multiple choice exam was wrong and the first guess was right. Why did you change it? This is what happened and I don't want that to happen in my games. If I find the best move I want to be able to recognize it. It's okay if I just can't find that 9-dan move, but I don't want to miss playing the 9-dan move when it was my first choice. (Okay, fine. But get back to studying books again. And do some go problems too. You keep neglecting this stuff when you said you would do it on the first post.)

Also, I know I should be getting back to my go books and tsumego, but I've been too busy recently to do everything I want with go. I find pro games and video lectures to be the most enjoyable, so that's what I've been doing. When I get some time my plan is to kill two birds with one stone by going back to Tesuji from the Elementary Go Series. (I'm glad you want to do books and problems but would you please just call them go problems. You don't see people on this forum referring to their go books as "bukku" do you? )

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves