Life In 19x19

A game to be proud of. Many good tenukis, hontes and counterattacks. I'm zure there will be a quibble about a move here and there, but really, this game is a reference game for you.

Hi Pak, nice game. and : better the tiger's mouth — why ?
Think about eye shape and the end game.

feels soft: separate W — W F17 group not 100% alive yet.

E18 to connect back.

R8 better aji ?

feels slow, small, and soft.
Did you look at all your stones and
the lone M9 stone ? Did you consider attacking ?
Something like tengen ? Think about the efficiency of —
how many points are you keeping with it ? Versus swallowing M9 ?

feels like bad habit, unaware of shapes:
if W simply blocks at F11, you force W to make good shape,
and you get a bad shape for yourself. Locally,
maybe G10 kosumi better. But, still tengen to kill M9.

too much.

good spirit !

@Ed: I still have trouble evaluating when to go for solid vs tigers mouth connections, but on the other hand I never noticed it as a problem, so I'm still focusing on more important things.

Looking at it now I could probably have attacked his lone stone in the center, but I remember that in the game I judged that it wouldn't be a safe kill yet.



Anyways, back from Wacken, and for some reasons I was a lazy bum today and didn't even come close to doing what I wanted to do, gotta change that over the next few days.

- 60 tesuji problems
- Some superficial joseki study (I really need to work out a system so this improves)
- One game which I won. It was kind of a stomp, but everything worked out and its nice every once in a while to have "easier" games where you can focus on the basics.

paK0 wrote:@Ed: I still have trouble evaluating when to go for solid vs tigers mouth connections, but on the other hand I never noticed it as a problem, so I'm still focusing on more important things.

( Emphasis added. )
Precisely why it's a problem: it's a current blind spot for you.
It's important because it's part of the basics.
And in this case ( and ), easy to understand, and beneficial for you.

Good exercise: Figure out why and lose points in the end game,
and why the tiger's mouth makes a difference
in the end game for these two cases.

EdLee wrote:
Good exercise: Figure out why and lose points in the end game,
and why the tiger's mouth makes a difference
in the end game for these two cases.

When you phrase it like that it makes a lot of sense, assuming the answers is what I think it is .

White can no longer hane in sente?

Also think about if you need to defend the cut. What can white do if you tenuki? Something yes, but is that something the biggest move on the board?

Some comments on the opening.

Again, life got in the way of my go studying, what did I ever think going to university...

- One game (won)
- 100 Problems

Almost all tesuji problems, I'm a lot worse at those than L&D, but they are less fun to do somehow, capturing single stones or connecting is not nearly as satisfying as killing groups

I'll try to look over some pro games in the near future, maybe I'll get something out of that. That might also help me with my lack of joseki knowledge.

Well, today I got a bit more done, and I still have some time, but its gonna be spend on something other than go, the last game I played was to gruesome to follow it up with anything.

- 70 Tesuji problems
- Memorized 3 pro games(at least to the point where they start to play tenuki on every 2nd move)
- 2 games (1 - 1)

I played on KGS on a whim and got to 9k, which is kinda neat, but for the second game I fired up Tygem and played a game where after 10 moves I cared more about it being over than me loosing. Next time **** like this happens I'm just gonna resign outright, its not worth my time or nerves.

For reference:

Why would you not want to play this game?

Right. Why not play against this guy? It's not like he's Go Seigen, eh?

Through move 20 you had built up a nice lead.

You worst move in the opening was . Letting Black live with sente blew your lead. Where do you think would be a good play instead?

You lost this game through poor attacking. Playing this opponent will give you opportunities to practice your attack.

Its hard to give an objective reason, its more like a feeling thing.

But I guess you're both right, should have just played normally and treat it as a learning experience instead of playing random moves to get it over with.

Black was playing a very unorthodox fuseki. This may have cost him points but not much more than 10-15 in total. Amateurs make successions of mistakes in middle or end game which are much more costly than that. The previous emulation of "correct" fuseki is mostly makebelief.

Also, Black put psychological pressure on White by pretending he was moving in a private familiar ground, putting the weight of the orthodoxy on White's shoulders. Such psychological pressure can easily turn into sloppy play or even self defeat.

I know what you have been feeling. I don't really appreciate it myself when an opponent starts with Big Wall variants or 7-7 opening but I'm not really angry with the opponent, rather with myself being intrinsically incapable of proving unorthodox fuseki wrong.

Knotwilg wrote:Black was playing a very unorthodox fuseki. This may have cost him points but not much more than 10-15 in total. Amateurs make successions of mistakes in middle or end game which are much more costly than that. The previous emulation of "correct" fuseki is mostly makebelief.

Also, Black put psychological pressure on White by pretending he was moving in a private familiar ground, putting the weight of the orthodoxy on White's shoulders. Such psychological pressure can easily turn into sloppy play or even self defeat.

I know what you have been feeling. I don't really appreciate it myself when an opponent starts with Big Wall variants or 7-7 opening but I'm not really angry with the opponent, rather with myself being intrinsically incapable of proving unorthodox fuseki wrong.

The 4-4 point is unthinkable.

Abyssinica wrote: The 4-4 point is unthinkable.

True dat, gonna start learning all those 7-7 Joseki.


Today was crappy go wise.
- Reread the attacking part of Attack and Defense
- 65 problems, but of the last 20 I got 17 or so wrong, guess my brain is telling me it doesn't want to work today.

So no playing for today, got a bad feeling about that, I guess I'll spend some time watching games on KGS or memorizing a progame or two.