Here's a game I played yesterday:
I have two main regrets:
1.) While attacking his group on the left, I haned inside and cut him - it probably is better to hane on outside and continue attack.
2.) It was risky to try to live in his moyo in such a direct way, early on in the game (see game comments).
Please feel free to comment on the game. Comments are welcome.
Kirby's Study Journal
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Kirby
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Kirby
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Re: Kirby's Study Journal
I played a club game against Mr. Fukuda. He's a really nice guy, and also a recent recipient of the Lasker Award.
It was our first game together, so we did nigiri and played evenly. I lost the nigiri, and played white.
The game record is here:
As can be seen in the variations, I made a big mistake in the top right corner due to a misread. I tried to make a comeback later, and there were a few moves where I could have probably been destroyed.
Somehow, I managed to comeback and win, but it was very lucky on my part.
It was our first game together, so we did nigiri and played evenly. I lost the nigiri, and played white.
The game record is here:
As can be seen in the variations, I made a big mistake in the top right corner due to a misread. I tried to make a comeback later, and there were a few moves where I could have probably been destroyed.
Somehow, I managed to comeback and win, but it was very lucky on my part.
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Kirby
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Re: Kirby's Study Journal
Key Board Positions
Position 1 (Bad Move!) The marked move, above, was played emotionally by me. I don't think it's a good move, and I think I should simply respond to black's approach to the corner:
Position 2 (Bad Move!)
The move above was one that I was trying to use to exploit black's weakness - but white was the one that was weak. I think it's definitely both a misread and a bad move.
I should have played somewhere to reduce black: Something like above seems safest, but I don't know if it's enough. Maybe there is a more clever move. What do you think?
Position 3
It's nice to kill black as in the game, but maybe letting black live in gote is fine. I think trying to kill so hard is not great globally, since black can pressure me so much. If I were confident in reducing black, maybe I should use this opportunity to expand white's potential:
If black now lives...
Now white can think of possibilities in the area to reduce black. White doesn't get the pleasure of killing black this way, but he gets initiative for future possibilities.
Position 4 The white move above is just silly - bad reading on my part. It can be cut off, and it wasn't a good move.
Concluding Thoughts
From this game, I learned:
* I had some very silly reading mistakes. I only read the ideal variations for myself, and didn't think of good resistance. This can be seen by the blunder in the top right corner, as well as in the knight's move in the last position, above. To improve this, I should do more go problems, and make sure to read sharply and precisely during games.
* Sometimes, even when you have a big blunder, you can still use the dead stones to help you out in the future.
* Don't let the opponent's moyo get too big!
Position 1 (Bad Move!) The marked move, above, was played emotionally by me. I don't think it's a good move, and I think I should simply respond to black's approach to the corner:
Position 2 (Bad Move!)
The move above was one that I was trying to use to exploit black's weakness - but white was the one that was weak. I think it's definitely both a misread and a bad move.
I should have played somewhere to reduce black: Something like above seems safest, but I don't know if it's enough. Maybe there is a more clever move. What do you think?
Position 3
It's nice to kill black as in the game, but maybe letting black live in gote is fine. I think trying to kill so hard is not great globally, since black can pressure me so much. If I were confident in reducing black, maybe I should use this opportunity to expand white's potential:
If black now lives...
Now white can think of possibilities in the area to reduce black. White doesn't get the pleasure of killing black this way, but he gets initiative for future possibilities.
Position 4 The white move above is just silly - bad reading on my part. It can be cut off, and it wasn't a good move.
Concluding Thoughts
From this game, I learned:
* I had some very silly reading mistakes. I only read the ideal variations for myself, and didn't think of good resistance. This can be seen by the blunder in the top right corner, as well as in the knight's move in the last position, above. To improve this, I should do more go problems, and make sure to read sharply and precisely during games.
* Sometimes, even when you have a big blunder, you can still use the dead stones to help you out in the future.
* Don't let the opponent's moyo get too big!
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Re: Kirby's Study Journal
Yes, looks like that's correct. Let's chalk that up as another reading mistakeShaddy wrote:In position 3, black is already dead, no?
By the way, I recalled this game from memory, and now that you mention this position, I remember that the following exchange occurred before the position: However, this doesn't affect the status of the eye in the marked area - it can be achieved in gote, so there's no need to play the move I played.
Thanks for bringing this up - I didn't even catch it during the review of the game I made for myself.
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skydyr
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Re: Kirby's Study Journal
In your variation for move 8, that move is quite playable for white, as it's how you get to the 'standard' taisha (read: potentially quite complex), but for the followup, white should atari from the other side. The proposed direction forKirby wrote:I played a club game against Mr. Fukuda. He's a really nice guy, and also a recent recipient of the Lasker Award.
It was our first game together, so we did nigiri and played evenly. I lost the nigiri, and played white.
The game record is here:
generally leads to white's outside group getting captured in a net, losing a big corner, or otherwise compromised. This will either lead to a trade for white territory vs black influence or lead to the traditional crosscut fight, depending on ladders and which cut white chooses to defend. Tenuki for 
is generally considered bad.My impression is that black set up the strongly influential position in the lower left with the idea of getting a decent result out of the fighting that would occur following a taisha crosscut fight, but I can't help but wonder if a one or two space low pincer would work better with black's lower left formation.
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Re: Kirby's Study Journal
Sounds familiar, and I agree.skydyr wrote: In your variation for move 8, that move is quite playable for white, as it's how you get to the 'standard' taisha (read: potentially quite complex), but for the followup, white should atari from the other side.
From the big picture, I agree with your sentiment. However, I don't see this being a net. It might be stupid for white to play this way, but if he stubbornly moves out...:skydyr wrote: The proposed direction for
I agree this isn't a viable option, and it doesn't look like a good way for white to play at all. But my feeling is that this is because white has two weak groups in the local area.
Don't get me wrong - I agree with your point that the atari is on the wrong side. I just don't feel that it would absolutely result in a net (though, the point is moot with poor playing). Anyway, I'm not that familiar with taisha variations. They sound fun to study.
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Re: Kirby's Study Journal
I don't know the full reason behind black's intentions, but in the brief chat we had after the game, he mentioned that he doesn't usually play this way, but was inspired by Yamashita. I don't know that well about particular pro styles, but maybe he meant Yamashita Keigo?skydyr wrote: My impression is that black set up the strongly influential position in the lower left with the idea of getting a decent result out of the fighting that would occur following a taisha crosscut fight, but I can't help but wonder if a one or two space low pincer would work better with black's lower left formation.
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oren
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Re: Kirby's Study Journal
It's very likely Yamashita Keigo. It's a common last name, but no other Yamashita has had as much success lately. He also has a fairly distinctive style.
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Re: Kirby's Study Journal
I looked up pro games matching the left side of the board using SmartGo.oren wrote:It's very likely Yamashita Keigo. It's a common last name, but no other Yamashita has had as much success lately. He also has a fairly distinctive style.
This formation matched 10 games. Interestingly, Yamashita wasn't in the list of players. The black players with this strategy were:
* O Rissei 9d
* Wang Yang 5d
* Ma Shi 7d
* Chen Linxin 9d
* Liu Wenlong
* Kang Cheolmin 5d
What's also interesting to me are the dates in which this pattern was played. This precise left-side formation was played 5 out of 10 times in 1997, even in the same month, and played 3 times in 2008 and 2005. It was played once by Kang Cheolmin in 1974.
The most common follow up was to play where I opted not to play in the game, as explained in the variation:
I was afraid of two space extension, as explained in the variation of the SGF, since black can press down:
However, while this was played, this wasn't the only option - the other pro that played this way jumped out here:
It seems like an interesting variation.
Anyway, there were still four pro games where white opted to approach, and in two cases, they approached where I did:
But in both cases after this, black pincered as above.
I think that this is a good option for black, because the pincer works well with his lower left formation.
While also approached here in two games, which might be an option:
Anyway, we could get into stats, but there are probably a lot of options this early in the game, at least for amateurs.
Back to the talk about Keigo, according to SmartGo results, Keigo did indeed play the bottom left corner pattern fairly often:
So maybe this is what Mr. Fukuda was being inspired by. That being said, this bottom left pattern seems even more often played by:
* Yoda Norimoto 9d; and
* O Meien 9d
From SmartGo results, O Meien played this bottom left pattern at least 33 times, which I personally feel is quite a bit for these types of database searches.
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Kirby
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Re: Kirby's Study Journal
Further investigation into the top right pattern shows that the move I played in the game against the taisha:
Was the second most commonly played, having 487 matching games in SmartGo. After this, the sequence to this position was most common:
After this, black almost always plays the marked move, so I don't think the way I played is that bad to this point. However, later when I ignored his approach in the top right - I think that was bad.
That being said, an alternative response to the move I played was the same as what I considered myself during my personal review, which is in one of the SGF variations of the game:
As pros also play this move a good deal, I think it's viable here, since it works with his bottom left corner formation (though, perhaps he should just play this move to begin with as a pincer, as described in the earlier post).
If I follow the most popular variation from this position...
Maybe it'd work in this case, but personally, I might slightly prefer black here.
So from this I can conclude, maybe the way the game sequence was played (until I tenuki'd his approach in top right corner) was viable - I like it personally, since it limits black's potential on the left and gives white territory.
However, since black can play as just described, maybe it's worth considering the more popular Taisha variation option, as skydyr suggests:
This early on, though, there are tons of variations here...
If black plays as follows: The good thing is, in many variations, it seems that white gets groups on both the left and top side - which would have the benefit of not giving black the big moyo he got in the game on the top.
For example, a popular variation is as follows: There are complications, but maybe black's top wouldn't be as big as it was in the game.
On the other hand, even if I select this move, this is a popular alternative:
A common followup is: It might work in this case, though white doesn't get a group on each side as in the other variation.
Was the second most commonly played, having 487 matching games in SmartGo. After this, the sequence to this position was most common:
After this, black almost always plays the marked move, so I don't think the way I played is that bad to this point. However, later when I ignored his approach in the top right - I think that was bad.
That being said, an alternative response to the move I played was the same as what I considered myself during my personal review, which is in one of the SGF variations of the game:
As pros also play this move a good deal, I think it's viable here, since it works with his bottom left corner formation (though, perhaps he should just play this move to begin with as a pincer, as described in the earlier post).
If I follow the most popular variation from this position...
Maybe it'd work in this case, but personally, I might slightly prefer black here.
So from this I can conclude, maybe the way the game sequence was played (until I tenuki'd his approach in top right corner) was viable - I like it personally, since it limits black's potential on the left and gives white territory.
However, since black can play as just described, maybe it's worth considering the more popular Taisha variation option, as skydyr suggests:
This early on, though, there are tons of variations here...
If black plays as follows: The good thing is, in many variations, it seems that white gets groups on both the left and top side - which would have the benefit of not giving black the big moyo he got in the game on the top.
For example, a popular variation is as follows: There are complications, but maybe black's top wouldn't be as big as it was in the game.
On the other hand, even if I select this move, this is a popular alternative:
A common followup is: It might work in this case, though white doesn't get a group on each side as in the other variation.
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Kirby
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Re: Kirby's Study Journal
Today I reviewed a professional game played between Kong Jie 9d and Lee Changho 9d.
As before, I tried to guess how players would play before they played the moves. The SGF, with my comments is here:
As before, I tried to guess how players would play before they played the moves. The SGF, with my comments is here:
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Kirby
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Re: Kirby's Study Journal
It wasn't in my routine to play a game today, but a friend approached me to play a game today. To keep things anonymous, I'll omit his name.
I played white, and gave him 5 stones. Here is the SGF:
To summarize the game, there are a few points where I could have lost the game by a lot. Somehow, things managed to work out for white, but it was very lucky on my part. He might have been able to kill my bottom left corner group, too. Anyway, I was lucky.
I'll have to play more precisely for future games.
I played white, and gave him 5 stones. Here is the SGF:
To summarize the game, there are a few points where I could have lost the game by a lot. Somehow, things managed to work out for white, but it was very lucky on my part. He might have been able to kill my bottom left corner group, too. Anyway, I was lucky.
I'll have to play more precisely for future games.
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Re: Kirby's Study Journal
For anyone following some of the games in this thread, I have a question for you. There are different styles in go. For example, Cho Chikun is known for being a territorial player, whereas Takemiya is more oriented toward his "cosmic style" moyos.
If I try to think of styles people can have in playing go, I can come up with the following (some of which may overlap):
* Territorial
* Moyo-oriented
* Fighting
* Calm
* Thick
* Fast
* Influence-oriented (perhaps similar to moyo oriented)
Maybe there are some other styles that I'm missing.
Anyway, if you have a moment, could you let me know which of these styles is most prevalent in my games, and which is most lacking? For example, based on my games, am I mostly territorial? Am I mostly fast? Something else? And, based on my games, am I least likely to be ...?
The reason I'd like to know this is because it is difficult for someone to know their own style, and I'd like to investigate a style that I am *not*.
If I try to think of styles people can have in playing go, I can come up with the following (some of which may overlap):
* Territorial
* Moyo-oriented
* Fighting
* Calm
* Thick
* Fast
* Influence-oriented (perhaps similar to moyo oriented)
Maybe there are some other styles that I'm missing.
Anyway, if you have a moment, could you let me know which of these styles is most prevalent in my games, and which is most lacking? For example, based on my games, am I mostly territorial? Am I mostly fast? Something else? And, based on my games, am I least likely to be ...?
The reason I'd like to know this is because it is difficult for someone to know their own style, and I'd like to investigate a style that I am *not*.
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