Bill Spight wrote:
Top of the head comments:
Black has just made bad shape. The immediate cut looks dangerous. The three stone forming an empty triangle have only 4 dame, so, according to Wilcox’s heuristic, they are possibly vulnerable. So here is my thinking for White.
White B-14 (crawl) - Black C-13 ; If Black hanes, White cuts.
White E-18 ; Not obvious, perhaps, but, as the game shows, E-17 allows the two step hane.
Aji keshi, forcing Black to protect his weak point at E-15.
Probably best to protect the corner with C-18, making good shape.
C-18 is even more urgent now.
See? Those two White stone are not a sacrifice, they are a gift.
B-14 first, to create a cutting point at C-13. Play kikashi before living. Also, B-14 is double sente.
You are right not to run with your floating stones in the top left. But you want to keep Black from swallowing them on a large scale. How about N-15?
White does not have a good attack against Black. G-03 or J-03 looks pretty good.
Why save only one stone? Tenuki looks better to me, now.
Not much of a threat, since Black has already played P-06.
Not to discourage you from studying Life and Death, but the problem on the bottom side came earlier, at
and
.
After your bad result in the top left, you did well not to run with your floating stones. A lot of players would have tried that.
P. S. Other thoughts.
Don't you wish you had played G-03 (
) earlier?
Maybe crawl once more at J-03, and then slide to G-02 if Black extends?
Thanks, Bill!
I knew black made bad shape, perhaps cutting was the best way to take advantage after all. I didn't want to cut when I was weak myself, but if I cut, we're both weak, and that's better than me being weak and him being able to fix his weaknesses!
The stones that were gifted (not sacrificed indeed), I must admit, were a horrible blindspot in my playing. I hadn't even seen it, can you believe that? I think the double 4-5 opening had a great effect on me. All through the game, I was constantly thinking how I'd counter the influence or the moyo... It really threw me off and I think I wasn't paying attention to local situations much. I think mostly because I've never seen the opening before and have never studied 4-5 joseki before (I checked a few variations now, though).
So my play there was just bad, no other word for it
Tenuki at
would never be on my radar. It just seems so big to tenuki. But seeing as (even if I lived) black gets more and more influence, it might've been the wiser choice. Tough call to make, though.
For some reason, I was quite blind to B14 in this game. Leela also pointed it out and I was like: yes, of course. It's so obvious. But it didn't come during the game. Once again, I think black's intimidation (if it was that, probably not) worked wonders because I was not thinking clearly
Thanks for the commendation, though, too, on my decision not running the stones out. I was looking at them and thought: if I try to run these out, the game is over. Even if they live. There are bigger things to do first. Like dying on the bottom of the board
So not my best game, maybe my worst in a long time, but it's been a very good game to me, because it finally made me go look at some 3-5 and 4-5 joseki and maybe next time I won't be freaked out by an unusual opening. I kind of want to try that opening for myself now, though
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Ian Butler
. Black has to defend the cut at L5, but lots of kyu players won't see that.