Some ideas.

Time for a new post!
I played almost exclusively on fox now and on average less than 1 game per day and I climbed to 4K steadily. But I felt that even though some games were challenging I felt that it wasn't challenging enough to maximise the learning per game.
So I decided to make an account at 1D, get my ass kicked and hopefully adapt. After 11 games lost, I finally managed to win one!
At first, I wanted to post the game before that where I almost won. But waiting for leela to analyse the game, I manage to score my win. So here are the two games.
No analysis for the won game yet but I'll do that right now.

The lost game with winrate attached:


and the won game:


So after quick evaluation by Leela, I am clearly loosing
Nevermind, it gives me one more opportunity to win before demotion

Hi, I am back!

So it's been more than a year since I poster in this study journal but I didn't stop to play.
However I think I progressed faster when I was posting here so let's try to restart this journal.

My goal is just to post a game every week with first a review by me and next some insight with lizzie.

Here is the game for this week : 3k vs 3k on fox, I am white and lost by 11 points.

Not exactly sure why I lost. I misjudge the strength of the black group and the value of the my cutting stone.

So saturday I sit down with the idea to play a tournament level game. It started well with me being focused and using my opponent's time to think. Unfortunately, I forgot that to make a great game you need 2 players. The opponent quit after move 22.
Nevertheless, I decided that since I took the game seriously it was a good thing to analyse it.
I am trying to stick to analysis in 3 phases:
1) noting what my thoughts were during the game
2) exploring variations and deciding if they were any good or if I missed something
3) run lizzie to check my mistakes (<5%, the rest I think is not worth the time for now)

Here is the game:

After a long hiatus, I am back playing go.

I had to remake my fox account and started at 3kuy, the level I had when I stopped playing.
Fox changed and I cannot get 10min + 3*30s games anymore?
So I started with 20min main time but I guessed not a lot of people choose this setting because I was matched with people from 5k to 1k.
I managed to get promoted quite easily even winning against 1k so I am not sure what is happening here.
Am I weirdly stronger after a pause or has the level dropped?

Today I played a 5min + 3*30s game against what I thought was a 1D but it showed up as 2k in sabaki I think so I'm not sure about my opponent level.
It is the kind of game I have a hard time playing.
I remember that Uberdude mentionned that ddk players love to build a wall along the entire board with each opponent deciding to continue to play along the wall move after move but honestly I still don't know when to stop doing that.
I think the main difficulty I have is to estimate what I need to keep and what I can let my opponnent have.

Anyway, here is the game:



With a bit of luck, reading this in the future, I'll be able to clearly see the problem with this wall building.

I suppose you're talking about the pushing contest around N4 in this game? I think white should not have pushed at N4 on move 24 (knight move was better shape and the ataris helped black) and I think black should not have pushed on move 33. I think black (or perhaps both players) should have played on the right side instead.

To back up what gennan says, when you are in a pushing battle you generally want to get in front. Often the best way of doing that is to play on a point that is a keima for both players. That play is called a double keima. There is a go proverb, Don't let the double keima get away.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Yes, that was what I was talking about.
I'll trust you with shape because I've never really understood it. To me it often look like an overly blurry argument to say that a move is better. I kind of see that M5 allowed to develop the right while allowing to play at the bottom later.


I was actually thinking about proverb while playing this. I thought "Don't let your opponent hane at the head of 2 stones" will allow me to get 7th line with a sure response from black. I guess "don"t push the cart from behind" should have been a warning that the secured 3rd line was better than the dreamy 7th line. I've never hear the double keima proverb. Does it mean "take every opportunity to play double keima" (I suppose one for you one for the opponent) or should I interpret it as "when you opponent uses double keima to get ahead, don't let him get away with it"?

edit: fixed name in quote

The double keima (M5) is a common "intersection" point between two moyos. In that case it is an important point that expands your own moyo while flattening your opponent's moyo. So it's a big double purpose move. But it may be a bit slow when it's not clearly sente.

In this case, M5 doesn't look clearly sente to me (for either color) and it leaves white's right side wide open for an easy invasion. So perhaps white would be building an empty shell and it would be better for white to inhibit an invasion on the right side first. But then black would probably take the double keima (in gote).

You need to exercise judgement. Again, to back up gennan, I think M-05 is better than the push from behind, but both Black and White groups in the bottom right are fine, and do not need bolstering. Furthermore, the bottom side is not developed. Even if Black plays at M-05, White has the shoulder hit at H-04.

FWIW, my inclination now would be to play in the bottom left quadrant. I don't like the 3-3 invasion, but maybe the 4th line attachment at G-04, or C-04 or C-06 or C-08, or even the submarine approach at B-05, looking at C-03 or C-08.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Is that a personnal preference or a fairly forced move? I would think that growing the white side is bigger than reducing black side. Especially since black's corner seems even looser than white.

If you don't want to play in the bottom left quadrant, maybe double keima is best, but my guesss is the two space jump to F-13 in the top left. FWIW.

In any event, I don't like pushing from behind.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Currently at 10 wins - 9 losses at 2k on fox.
I had a quick look at all the games played at 2k so far to try to pick up a pattern to improve. I gound that:

• I tend to leave weak group unattended, sometimes to enclose, sometimes to create another weak group in the opponents region
• I am really bad at making shape in enemy territory
• When ahead, I never often fail to simplify the game until I win. Rather, I keep on fighting and end up losing

So I'll try to work on that this month.

I also picked up some weird sequences where I didn't know how to respond (and some that are not weird but where I am not sure about the following move).

Lost a game of yesterday against a 2k.
After analysis with katago, I actually could have won this game twice at moves 42 and 90

I finally get around to add a new game here.
Since last time, I got demoted to 3kyu and it took me 37 games to go back to 2kyu!
Here is the promotion game:


I took the time to think and play seriously. I don't have much time with enough mental clarity to play interesting games so the plan is to make every game count.
To compensate for that, I started reading Tesuji by James Davies during the week. I am not done yet but so far I find it quite interesting! for smarter people that I am, it actually gives everything away in chapter 1:

Have a goal when reading a sequence
Don't be lazy, read all the oponent response

That being said, the 185 pages following that are a nice addition!