Life In 19x19

Thank you for the review. My problem is that I am still very vulnerable against trickery and overplays. That is probably still due to my lack of experience. Now I've played two online games this week and I think I have done a little better in sticking to a plan.

I managed to get promoted to 13 kyu with the following win, which I commented again. I do appreciate any comments, as usual.

I'm now going to enjoy two weeks of leave, during which I plan to work towards my first tournament participation at the beginnning of October. I'll have some friends visiting during my leave, so I won't be able to study the whole time - but I'll probably do much more than usually

Hi Rev,

C10.

Hello Ed,

that does make sense indeed. One can see in my own comments that I was worrying about the black framework almost right away.

It's a good reminder to me and other beginners that learning joseki and fuseki stuff by heart only isn't a good idea in go.

Revilo wrote:learning joseki and fuseki stuff by heart only isn't a good idea

In moderation it's OK; training wheels...we have to start somewhere.
( If it becomes a crutch or a mental block, then it's bad. )

Hi Rev,

, Tenuki is good; you're correct -- is too early (end game move).
Your top right group is not in danger (yet), so it's OK to take a big point.
For future reference: Locally, W's reply is R15.

Good direction and good idea -- help your top right group, pressure B's group,
get out, get ahead of B, control the center.

This small box shape is not bad; however, also natural to continue the flow
with N9 or o8 -- stay ahead of B, control the center.

Same problem as . ( Locally, it's a correct follow-up for B; just too early, too small for now. )

Revilo wrote: My problem is that I am still very vulnerable against trickery and overplays.

Well you shouldn't complain, playing trickery stuff yourself.
At what moves do you think you were tricked? It's possible that your opponent played something sensible.


Here are two easy concepts that will help you at your level:
- Check out "double wing" on senseis. Usually it is better to intervene early, when they start to appear. Knowing about the concept, you would probably have played differently against blacks upper left corner and when developing your lower left corner.
- Don't kick (move 38) unless you know what you're doing. Kicks can backfire easily, because there is lots of aji on 3-3.

These are 2kyu cents.

I guess it is time for an update. I've been improving little by little over the course of the last six weeks and today I managed to get to 12k on IGS. My tally now is 106 to 79 since registering in January and beginning at the bottom of the rank chart. So after all, making it to SDK this year might still be achievable, even though I do not find time to play very often. Also, the chess league season is about to begin which will draw some of my attention away from go.

But it is definitely nice to feel some progress. I have played my first OTB tournament two weeks ago, a 6 round McMahon with 60 minutes plus byoyomi of 5 minutes for 15 moves. Based on the handicaps I usually take in the local club, I registered as 11k ended on 2-4 only. It became clear that I was still lacking in experience. I often took a lot of time and still missed a lot of stuff that my quicker playing opponents had seen. As a result, I took advantage of the book dealer at the tournament and bought all four volumes of Fujisawa Shuko's tesuji dictionary

I'm currently working through the first volume (tesujis for attack) and I feel my vision has already become a lot sharper. I managed a big kill in a 6 stone handicap game at the local club and also in the game that got me promoted to 12k today, I found a nice idea that I'd attribute to the tesuji dictionary.

I don't know if Black 144 actually is totally effective for cutting White apart but White certainly had a lot of problems to solve. It was certainly a good feeling to play a move like Black 144, even if it might turn out that it doesn't fully work.

Then on the other hand, I made myself feel stupid and not able to count again by playing Black 162 ...

W145 I would have played on the other side, at J4.

Fedya wrote:W145 I would have played on the other side, at J4.

But Black seems to be able to cut anyway, doesn't he?

H4 F4 H5 F3 and now if White F2 Black G2 atari first, followed by E2 atari.

If W145 at J4, Black can cut with H5.

What happens if White sacrifices the G3 stone to play for a ko?

144 is a great idea. Good job finding that move

Hello everybody,

it's been a while since I last posted something into my diary. Somehow, I just didn't find the time to keep posting, which doesn't actually mean that I stopped playing and learing.

I've now reached 8k EGF, mostly by regularly attending the local club, reading books and doing the occasional excersise on TsumeGo Pro. Online, I'm still standing at 12k IGS, as I just couldn't muster enough games to move up.

A peculiar thing I noticed was that whenever I took some time off off go, I moved up a little in relation to the guys attending the club. So when the time came to sit down in a tournament this summer, I registered as 8k and ended at 1-3 against 4 7k players. It was a rapid tournament, 25 minutes plus 20 stones in 5 minutes byoyomi, and my result could have been better if I had not blundered in time trouble in two of the games, one of which I was clearly winning. I'm still having trouble when I've got to move quickly and in general it seems that I'm a rather slow thinker.

Last week I played in another tournament, this time with 60 minutes and 15 moves in 5 minutes byoyomi, registering at 8k again. I started well, winning two games against 8k and then losing against 7k.

In the fourth round I then played what I initially considered the best game of my still short career. I had a 6k on the brink of defeat, but unfortunately lost the thread completely in byoyomi again. Since I still was sort of proud of the game, I decided to spend some time, about three to four hours, analyzing the game and posting it up here.

What can I say, the conclusion of my analysis is that I totally overestimated the quality of my play. Even though Leela on my machine is not the sharpest knive in the drawer, I could sense that I still missed, misread or misjudged so much stuff that it was quite a sobering experience for me. There where also so many situations where a second look at the position, along with Leela's suggestion, just made me feel like I was completely missing the point during the game...

I'd like to share the game up here, along with commentary about what was going on in my mind during the game. I appreciate comments, especially about the strategic errors.

Your about at my level now. So, take these comments with that in mind. But I had the following thoughts when I looked through your game:

1. I feel like you are over thinking the fuseki. You have a different style than I have, but the first move that seemed possibly problematic to me was 12. Through then, this seemed like a reasonable fuseki for both players.

2. Move 9. This weekend, I looked through a number of pro games that were at a point similar to the board at move 8. (The main difference was that the white stone in the bottom right was at the 4-4 point, but that doesn't seem like a big deal.) Many of the pros played your 9 at that point. So, while there may be small differences in the value of the move, at your/our level, I can't imagine that it matters that much.

Finally a question: On move 17, while my initial reaction was to play something else, the change in Leela's winning probabilities seems small to me. I would have taken this change to mean that there were stronger moves to be made. I would not have thought of 4% as "whopping". Am I off base on that?

Edit: In comment 1, changed 17 to 12.

BlindGroup wrote:1. I feel like you are over thinking the fuseki. You have a different style than I have, but the first move that seemed possibly problematic to me was 17. Through then, this seemed like a reasonable fuseki for both players.

I don't like very much, but that's largely because I have been told to avoid this move until I'm dan level.

Finally a question: On move 17, while my initial reaction was to play something else, the change in Leela's winning probabilities seems small to me. I would have taken this change to mean that there were stronger moves to be made. I would not have thought of 4% as "whopping". Am I off base on that?

Leela's win probabilities are very volatile, and often depend on unintuitive followups. I would be much more concerned if Crazy Stone's win probability dropped by 4%.

dfan wrote:

BlindGroup wrote:1. I feel like you are over thinking the fuseki. You have a different style than I have, but the first move that seemed possibly problematic to me was 17. Through then, this seemed like a reasonable fuseki for both players.

I don't like very much, but that's largely because I have been told to avoid this move until I'm dan level.

I actually agree. I need to get better at editing my posts before I submit them.

Question though -- why have you been told to leave this until the dan level? My thought on this is that as Revilo notes in the sgf, the K16 stone puts black a move ahead in the normal 4-4 attach and extend joseki. Black no longer has to play the extension since one already exists. That's disadvantageous enough, that I would have avoided the joseki entirely. Is it in fact a reasonable plan?