he looks like he is going for the kill on those five stones around a6, im continuing gain influence in the center, hopefully he plays another move in the corner so i can contiune to compensate elsewhere, as far as ko threats i have g19 but i will hurt me more than help me because black has a few more threasts

Right, so I win the capturing race, and with unexpected ease Of course, in doing so I had to give up quite a lot of points in the lower-central region (perhaps I can rescue something here, although I'm not sure - it's something I need to read in more details), and my opponent now has sente too. OTOH, I did get G18 in, and will get at least one nice followup from that. I'm definitely behind, but I feel like I'm right back in the game now - and am certain 1986 could have done a lot better had he just played out the ko in the usual fashion. But what do I know?

im still even on the score lets see if i keep it this way

:w14: looks logical enough, but I'm very surprised he put the 12/13 exchange in first - surely that's no more than a wasted ko threat?

Anyway, now I guess I need to figure out where I should play next...

Despite what I said about 1986's plays being more generous to me than they might have been - which I still believe is true - now I see the position which has resulted I'm actually seriously considering resignation at this point. Those "quite a lot of points" I just lost around J6 are actually pretty enormous - white has the entire lower portion of the board (something I went out of my way to avoid earlier in the game, and had succeeded in until being forced to play a serious of unfavourable kos). I'm think I'm around 20 points behind, if not more, and don't see any way back from here unless I can somehow bring some of those stones back to life. And I don't see how that's possible - there clearly isn't remotely enough space to live independently (even one eye would be something of an achievement...), and all of his stones look well-enough connected to obviously living ones that I don't see how to capture any either. I don't think white has to do anything more now than to just keep H5 alive.

Still, I'm going to sleep on it, and perhaps see if I can see anything tomorrow.

I'm much too lazy to count this, but I hope you'll do (and post!) a precise count before resigning.

By my rough count white's ahead by about 6 points. I think it's too close to resign just yet, especially at this skill level.

Really? By mine, with komi, it's more like 20.. are you sure?

OK, trying again, more carefully...
White:
Upper Left: 25
Upper Right: 6
Bottom: 48 (ish?)
komi: 6.5
total = 85.5

Black:
Prisoner diff: 17
Left: 15 ?
Top: 8
Right: 25
total = 65

Not sure where I hallucinated before, possibly didn't carry a 10 when adding somewhere...

Easily done I normally do that in my own games sadly

It's a small thing, but move 212 is one of those moves that you can really itch to play, but is really just a wasted ko threat.

I agree with Redundant. At this level, fight to the bitter end, if for nothing else you may still get nice notes for your yose.

At this level, still early for B to resign. B may be able to get a ko or even live outright at C17.

All these "small" things and bad habits, etc. add up and eventually come back to bite us,
and are one reason we're "stuck" at our levels, whatever they are.

Well, in all honesty I still think I could resign with a perfectly clear conscience - I have counted in more detail and, taking komi into account, I'm about 20 behind at best But I wouldn't want to let Ed down, so I'm continuing Seriously, he's right - you never know what might turn up. Although I'm basically going to need to kill something that I have absolutely no right to (or live with J5, which, despite many desperate attempts in my reading, is sadly impossible in the cold light of day), if I'm going to somehow pull off a win here.

I'm not sure where best to play, though (I doubt my endgame is good enough, even for my very modest rank, to be worthy of the plaudits Ed mentions, but I guess we'll see ). In the end I went with this capture, which is fairly big in itself, and also may lead to some followups in the general area. Not that I can see anything concrete unless 1986 chooses to tenuki 2 or 3 times The problem with this move is that it's gote for both sides I strongly considered Q18, which is at least reverse sente, but I decided this move is sufficiently big to be worth playing despite it being gote (I believe the rule of thumb is that sente or reverse sente plays are worth twice as much as gote ones, but Q18 is essentially a 1-point move and this is worth at least 4).

I reserve the right to resign in a few moves' time if nothing good has happened, though. I see little point in playing on "just to practise my endgame" when there is no chance of actually winning. But I'm going to give it at least a few more moves. After all, we have already seen in this game that fights can break out at any time

that move is not sente so im going to reinforce this weak spot its been looking at me for a while now and i got a feeling he would haved played it next if i played elsewhere

OK, well I'll continue in this area and see what I can get...

hmmn... i like that move its a natural way to move out and it damages my one stone, , i really dont know where to play here i was thinking keep pressing the center but c17 is a pretty big point for black again, and this eliminates me having to worry about how to defend the 3-3 invasion, my last two moves have been just patching up my areas of worry, now im ready to attack!

Hmm, I suppose I can't blame him for playing safely given the lead he has, but that move looks to me like -1 point in gote A few more of those, and I might be back in with a chance... (unless the 3-3 invasion actually worked for me, in which case I feel stupid as it's been there for ages. But surely there's no way I could have got anything in that corner other than outright death?)

I guess I'll continue my expansion from this position and gobble up another white stone.