Seven stones

[EdLee]

Hi Thimblefox,

B17 is very big. Do you see why ?

Nothing very clever about this move -- it's a standard move.

You're correct about this kick: it's not very good.
Do you see why ? You force B to make a very good shape.
In general, if you see your move helps your opponent,
you really should look much harder for other options.
See Boidhre's notes in his post 60.

Very slow, like a snail.

Not good. It doesn't prevent B M15 or B Q12 from coming out.
There's also nothing to build there, for either B or W.
This feels like a pass.
For example, you didn't take care of your lower right corner.
B can start to harass that corner now...

...luckily for you, B didn't know what to do there.

the vital point is R5, not here.

B gives you a chance to fix your corner,
but you don't take it.

Bad.

B misses the vital point P5.
If B peeps at P5, you get cut.

Pass.

Almost. This fixes P5 but does not fix the problems at R5.
Find the correct local move that fixes both at once.

[Thimblefox]

Hi Ed!

Takes the corner away from him. And I should prioritize the corner over the side, at least in this case.

Cleverer than my move, kicking him into shape.

I found that move odd as well. Maybe he didn't want me to play S15?

Well, I'd play something like O2 if I knew I had to deal with the corner. Because I don't know anything about shape in the corner.

I'd probably do the same as him except for the fact that I'd extend first. But, at first look that seems even worse.

Aha! Now I see that I've at least made two horrible mistakes in that corner.

Q5.

[Knotwilg]

Highlights

1) White wins by closing off a large territory in the centre
2) White could have knocked out Black by killing the large group on the right
3) White could have won even bigger by killing the invasion in the lower left.
4) Black could have established an early lead by surrounding the lower right.

See commentary.

Ed's comments focus on the lower right technique and tactics, which is highlight 4 throughout the commentary.

[Thimblefox]

Thanks for your comments, guys. I'll reply to them later. First, a small update.

I've waited forever for my books, they arrived yesterday, and I've now started reading "1001 life and death problems". When I played Go a few years ago, a friend gave me a gift card for Guo Juan's lectures. I decided it probably wouldn't hurt to do a couple of the lectures and make myself some notes. I had a problem looking at the lectures however, and since I helped the IT-guys locate the problem, I got ten free lectures and access to this new training system on her site. So I'll probably try to use that efficiently as well. I might write some of my thoughts about the training system, right now I don't find it that interesting.

The last few days I've basically focused on writing exams, it's not like I have time pressure or anything, but I haven't felt like I could work constructively on getting better at the things I really need to get better at (tsumego.. and everything else), so I've focused my efforts elsewhere.

Now I'll focus on tsumego, and try to play a game per day. Or perhaps more realistically, day 1: play, day 2: review.

[Thimblefox]

I lost this game because of a ridiculous mistake, and I'm now finally ranked at IGS with 16k. That means I have 7 stones to go before New Year. I also met up with people from my local club for the first time, which was also exciting.

[EdLee]

Hi Thimblefox,

Game 1:

Your R15 block in your variation is very big.
Possibly the only move. Otherwise B pushes through at R15 -- complete broken shape for W.

B can simply push thorough at R15: classic Toothpaste.
Or, B can first atari R16 (sente), then tiger's mouth R14 --
even worse than toothpaste shape for W.

R14. Prevent the B atari at the same spot, R14.
It's not about living in the corner --
that's already a wrong direction in your thinking.

vital point, in sente.

, , If your first feeling or habit to reply to a 2nd-line hane like is the descent , then this is a (common) bad habit.
There are situations where the descent is correct.
(And maybe this is such a case here.) But is a bad habit --
B forces you to make good shape and live, with .
B does not want to help W like that. is a common example
of a bad sente move -- learn to recognize moves like it.

( There is an entirely different, joseki, sequence
starting with pincer at H17 instead --
W would still take 3-3 at C17, but your next move is
the diagonal-attach at E17 -- you may look it up for reference. )

Very strange... bad habit ? Take!

Yes, N4 better. You don't have to worry about his J9 stone now.

Basic shape problem. Cut at o4: first feeling.

168: Why do you care about 0.5 points when you have moves worth 10 times or more ?

170 Bad shape (hitting yourself on the head;
hane head of two), bad feeling. The local shape is E3.

[Charles Matthews]

Numerous mistakes, certainly. After Black 259 you can kill the white group in the lower right. It is striking that you remark more on losing your own group in that corner. So these are the game-deciding plays.

Black gets off to an excellent start, but doesn't exploit it, because of mistakes in style. These are also important to sort out, and it would be worth a detailed explanation.

[Knotwilg]

Game 2:

Life & death exercise

281: Black to live
280: White to kill
279: Black to live
278: White to kill
277: Black to live

275: status?

Other exercises:

141: get the best out of the situation
55: keep maximum use for your stones

Enjoy!

Edit: as Charles points out, at 259 you can kill. That is another highlight.

[EdLee]

Game 2:

I decided to not think too much on what I was doing. As far as I was concerned I was playing someone who was better than me, and I simply played casually, and without reflecting too much on my moves.

I'm not sure what I wanted to do with this move.

[Thimblefox]

Game 2:

Life & death exercise

281: Black to live
280: White to kill
279: Black to live
278: White to kill
277: Black to live

275: status?

Other exercises:

141: get the best out of the situation
55: keep maximum use for your stones

Enjoy!

Edit: as Charles points out, at 259 you can kill. That is another highlight.

T5 seems to be the solution to all my life and death problems. I also didn't realize that I could potentially take that white group at 55. 259 I didn't see at all.

[Thimblefox]

Game 2:

I decided to not think too much on what I was doing. As far as I was concerned I was playing someone who was better than me, and I simply played casually, and without reflecting too much on my moves.

I'm not sure what I wanted to do with this move.

In my defense, I'm sure I had some plan at , but it couldn't have been that good of a plan, because looking at it now it just seems very slow.

Sometimes I overthink moves that end up being wrong anyway. I decided that I'll settle for what seems the right move for me at the time, instead of saying that there's definitely a better move. Because, of course there is, there's a reason I'm not 15-16k, right? But if I waste time figuring out a move that I can't figure out because of time restraints, I'll waste the time I would've needed to figure out moves that I could figure out. That was my logic.

[Bill Spight]

Sometimes I overthink moves that end up being wrong anyway. I decided that I'll settle for what seems the right move for me at the time, instead of saying that there's definitely a better move. Because, of course there is, there's a reason I'm not 15-16k, right? But if I waste time figuring out a move that I can't figure out because of time restraints, I'll waste the time I would've needed to figure out moves that I could figure out. That was my logic.

For a few crucial moves you really need to hunker down and spend a few minutes on them, and you need to spend some time making plans. But at your level may I suggest that usually you should pick, say, the three best candidate moves you can see and then for each of them look at the two best replies you find and evaluate the results. Even if you spend only 2-3 seconds on each variation, that's a reasonable pace. Reading is not just about calculating variations, it is also about picking candidate moves and evaluating results.

Edit: I don't mean to say that you shouldn't look more deeply. But if you try this method you will find that you will see further than two moves without any extra effort.

[Thimblefox]

The first stone

So now that I’ve gotten placed at 16 kyu by IGS, I can finally begin systematically training towards my goal for 2015, namely 9 kyu. That means I have to strengthen my game by seven stones. One stone is supposed to make a ten point difference, so in that spirit I’ll try to look at those aspects of the game where I can get at least ten points better. That basically means any aspect of the game, but I’ll just focus on the aspect where I can gain the most points.

The best candidate for my first stone is obviously life and death problems. In that spirit I’m now reading my way through “1001 life and death”. My plan is to try to solve the entire thing and see how quickly I can work my way through the problems. I’m not laying the problems out on the board because that's not something I can do while playing a game.

I’ve solved about 120 now, and I’m having some trouble with the problems related to seki, because I often think that something’s a seki which isn’t really a seki at all, or I don't realize that I can solve the problem by seki. I guess my brain just hasn’t got used to seeing them.

Obviously, I can improve my game by more then ten points by doing tsumego, but I also think of them as my seven stepping stones, or my seven challenges. I haven’t given much thought to what comes “after” working through these tsumego problems. Obviously I’ll keep doing tsumego, but I can at least improve ten points in the endgame. I’ll most likely work on shape problems after having focused a while on tsumego. For that I’ve got Bozulich’s “Making Good Shape”.

[EdLee]

Hi Thimblefox,

„after“

The subscript quotes („) are interesting.

Oh, here they are on iOS « » „ “ ” "

“Curly quotes”

[Bonobo]

EdLee,

Hi Thimblefox,

„after“

The subscript quotes („) are interesting.

Oh, here they are on iOS « » „ “ ” "

“Curly quotes”

Yeah, we media folks also call them “typographical” quotes. In German we use them like this: „Wort“, so I suspect Thimblefox could be a speaker of German, but they could also be East European since many East European languages also use them this way. In French it is « mot » (note the spaces!); and in German you can also use the Guillemets, but in the other direction and without spaces, like this: »Wort« (this is my favourite for typesetting German).

Took me quit a while until I could type them all on the Mac, including the single ones › ‹ ‚ ‘ ’

In print, there are few things worse than using inch (") and foot (') marks as substitutes for proper quotation marks and apostrophes.