Reading.... I think.... I'm ok...

I think this is the only move... he still has a lot of aji.

sofar he has gained nothing after my assessement. infact he lost some points and i still have potental to get 10 points in the middle. i have no idea why he would stop that ko fight and play useless moves. maybe he is thinking that he is winning. he will feel sorry when he findout that he is actually losing by few points.

I'm pretty confident that I'm ahead. He made life, so I got to reduce all his center potential. I think he'll resign.

By my count, white is like one or two points ahead (my margin of error at this stage in the game: +/- 5, maybe 10). Way too close to tell; I don't think their counting is that much better than mine (it sounds like Violence hasn't even counted at all): I don't understand how each of them thinks the other will resign.

I also haven't understood most of Violence's moves for the entire game, but they must not have been too much worse than Magicwand's as the game is super close.

Why did you stop fighting the ko, can you explain what just happened? Some commentators thought

EDIT: I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter anymore as you directly said you thought black was alive now, but hidden just in case:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm1 Prisoners: W=5, B=10
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X X O . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . |
$$ | X . X O . . O . X X . O . X . X O . . |
$$ | X X O O . . . O O X . . X . . X X O . |
$$ | O O O . . . . . O O X X X O X O X O . |
$$ | . X O X . . . . . X O . . . O O O . . |
$$ | . X X O O X X X O O . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X X O O . . X . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . X O . X . X . W . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X X . . . X . X . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . X O O O . X X O . X X X . . . . . |
$$ | . X O . O X O O O . O . O . . . . . . |
$$ | O X X O O X O X X . O . O . O O . . . |
$$ | . O O . . X X O . X . X . . O X O O . |
$$ | . . . . . X O O . . . . . . . X X X . |
$$ | . . X O . X . . . X . . . X . X . . . |
$$ | . . O O . . X O . X . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . O O O X . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Something bombastic.

Next comment is obvious:
'I think I'm ahead, I can win before counting!' - if its V's turn.
'He will resign soon for sure!' - if its MM's move.


This should be a sticky for my prediction for each move in their games.

Quote
"I have to say I find the constant predictions of resignation as well as other posturing unseemly.
For all we know, the winning/losing move has not yet been played. These predictions make the players look stupid ( because they risk making these comments in a losing game ) and arrogant.

Instead of posturing the players should be making comments reflecting the thoughts that are going into making the move. That's what these games ( at least as I understand them ) are for."

I actually think that this is what makes the games between V and MW so fun to watch. Granted they are not the best to watch if you are trying to learn something because they do not do a good job of doing any kind of explaining why they choose the moves they do. But I do find the battle of obviously 2 huge egos interesting.

Sorry Calm, but I was under the impression that we were just supposed to post our thoughts here.

My last move, I thought was easy to understand. I just want to capture that one stone in sente.

Everything I've been talking about has honestly been going through my head.

If you'd like me to shut up about it, that's fine. But have you never expected a resignation from your opponent?

Daniel: This is a good question. I was under the impression that it was hard to kill black, because most of his threats are much larger than mine, like the big group atari, poking at the bamboo joints, it didn't seem to me like an easy ko to win, so I played in the center to negate his influence. When you play a ko that comes at no risk to yourself, there is no reason to take risks in fighting it, right?

This is the biggest move on the board, so I played it.

I thought the monkey jump to O19 (sente) was bigger than R11.

it's hard to say R11 isn't sente though

You may be right. Though I believe most monkey jumps are gote.

How strong is Vilence's endgame? I get the feeling that most of his games are over before then.

True, it has great entertaining value, for a while...
However, if the posturing is constant and highly repetitive, it just becomes tedious and boring.

I got to the point where I hardly even look at MMs comments, since all he seems to be thinking about is 'What a kyuish move' or 'He will resign soon', or something like that, even if the position or the move does not really warrant such assessment. Other than that, he's main justification for moves seems to be 'it feels is good' or 'it feels is bad'. V is not much better.

Don't get me wrong - it is natural to wish for win and resignation. However, I cannot possibly imagine that at dan level this is THE ONLY THING that they think about. Even as a low kyu player I had more things going through my head, sequences I evaluated, plans I rejected, and so on... In other words, we are only getting the posturing without all the other good stuff, and the posturing is highly repetitive. Did I say it was highly repetitive? Yes, I did say it was highly repetitive. Because its true - the posturing is highly repetitive!

I think that it is a very entertaining game, but might as well be a regular server game for all I care. We seem to be getting very little insight into what the players are thinking other than the highly repetitive posturing.

I think I have made my point.

hmm, I don't see how white ends in sente after R11. If black blocks at R10 and white switches elsewhere, it may be sente but I think white loses something by the exchange. On the other hand if white continues, black can easily switch elsewhere first - such as Q19.

No. If you end in gote after having played a monkey jump, you have made a mistake.