Life In 19x19

Thx ez4u, I really missed that !

I went to my first tournement this week-end, 5 games, lost 4 of them but at least got one so I'm happy.
I played at 13 kyu, unfortunatlly I have no sgf (I was allready enougth stressed without that

In my understanding:

GAME 1 was an even game, me playing white without komi against a 15kyu
I have lost that one being too greedy and finally got severly cut and lost an important group (and the game)

GAME 2,3 and 4 were handicap games, against 6-8 kyu
No group died here, but I losed again because I let my opponenent build a too big corner/border
I even did a self atari in one of the game... annoying ...

GAME 5 handicap games vs 9kyu
I won that one using a monkey jump that ripped the base a group which than had to
crawl to get alive while I did a lot of points. I'm happy with that one,
That's the can a level I would like to stabilize to for now.

Bonus Game (not in the tournement)
A 9 stones handicap against a Dan player
Here again, I let him build a to big bordre, but in that game, that was like the territory occured in one move !
usally I saw that a moyo is slowly becoming territory, but I don't really now how to reduce/invade and my move helps more
my opponenent than me ... but in that game... I even didn't see how that big secure territory happened...
At some point I even though I was ahead

General constations :

My playing is still far from being stable. I can do good things, especilly in the begining of the game,
but I still do very big mistakes too...

I'm confident till move 9 or 10 and then... things becomes really harder
My yose knowledge is... inexistant... but I think its ok at my level,
I'm more annoyed with the big group I have lost and the self-atari...

Anyway, I really enjoyed that experience I will try to do at least two tournements by year .

Hi all, here are two recent games I played on IGS.
both are played the same night, against two different people, but they are quite similar...

in both I'm white, in both black played a chinese (or chinese like) fuseky.
I won one and lose one, but both game where decided on big mistake...

So here are the games, both including some comments of mine :

The one I lose(GAME #1) (not securing my top/left corner near 250)




And here is the one I won (GAME #2) (but black was ahead and would have won that one without that black 243)



Any comments welcome.

Here are some comments (hidden below) on the lost game. In general(for me at least ) not following the variation at move 38 seemed to hurt you the most. My second comment would be to think about what you are going to get when you attack a weakness like an elephant eye - don't just attack because it's there. Finally (ignoring the loss of the group) there were some simple endgame mistakes that cost a few points.

And some more for the won game. Here I think the problem was that you were playing big moves before urgent ones - and ended up sacrificing too much of the corners and the sides for a middle that was all too easily invaded - you got lucky though and your opponent threw away two big groups with silly mistakes.(sounds just like my kind of game!)

Thank you S2W, that's really usefull, I liked the yose examples, that's something I can apply right now at my level to win few points here and there...

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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Today is my "GO Bithday", I discovered GO just one year ago !
What a trip so far

When starting GO one year ago, I decided to spent a whole year "just discovering things, without any plan"
And now, as I really liked the game, I want try to organize a bit the time a spent and the way I will study things.

So I will change a bit my study journal and post more things that I'm actually studying instead of posting only games.

I still don't know exactly how I will oragnize my study, but I want to start from scratch.

That's also a good time to say thank you to all of you again ! you really helped me durring that first year!

Next step : build a study plan for my second year of go. My Goal for next year is becoming SDK (I'm currently ~ 14kyu )

Happy go-thday! My profile being very similar to yours (including the French-speaking beginner of advanced age starting in BC class of IGS part), I have read your thread with great interest and will be following the next one. I might even challenge you to a game if I spot you on IGS so you can teach me a few tricks of the trade

mimano wrote:I might even challenge you to a game if I spot you on IGS so you can teach me a few tricks of the trade

Hi mimano,

Sure ! I that will be very nice. hope we can play a game soon !

The first thing I want to be able to do is : Doing the right things at the right moment...

Well... let's start simple... I know that there are usually 3 phases in the game

- The opening
- The middle of the game
- The end of the game

First of all, I will try to play with that in mind, and try to identify when a phase starts (1/3 is allready ok as I suppose opening allways starts at move 1 is it ).

So for my next game, I will try to delimit "nearly" where each phase starts .

Now, what to do in the opening ?
-> just try to keep things simple will be enougth for now.
-> avoid fancy moves
-> avoid small moves (if not an urgent move)

What to do in the middle of the game ?
-> Consolidate position
-> Try to avoid playing near black thickness... (as I now I can help to do that...)

What to do in the endgame ?
-> Try to find sente moves, start to evalute points for moves, I'm sure I will do tons of mistakes, but let's just start doing it and stop playing only by instinct...
-> oh...and win the game

Also during all the game :
- Watch out for liberties/atari (I still miss a few )
- Avoid as far as possible bad and broken shapes.

So now its time to go on IGS and and see if I can do all that...
(that quite funny to post my goals before playing the game... but that also put some presure on me...)

I am watching you!

mimano wrote:I am watching you!

LOL... the game is over now, and of course, nothing went as excpected...
I will post the game soon

Since I am watching the game, I thought I might as well comment - or rather indicate my interrogations, live

Until I find you both playing great. but at , I would have deprived the B group of a base and let it run instead of cutting its route to the center. Probably Q18.

is maybe a bit cautious, I think I would try to invade right now around C14 especially with the strong W group on the right side.

Ko fight at you tricked me, preparing the monkey jump, I did not see it coming as W, I would have tried to threat the top right corner with Q18 again I think. Probably worse than your move though.

I would not play that, I do not think you can kill the corner. But it is severely reduced, I found the overall sequence nice! A monkey jump is always pleasant to watch. That is, when I am not at the receiving end of it!

:w142: now we're in a huge fight for your immense center area, I have no clue how it will finish!

:w152: I would pierce the elephant eye at P12 because if B connects, the center group is alive, and the weak one on the side as well. So everything to cut in my opinion.

Wow, obviously I had misread You just killed the right group's eye, I did not see that coming. So the fight is on.

:W179: This is just an all-out war. It started SO quiet, I thought you did not like to fight, and now it is just, total mayhem!

Finally your weak group dies. Well, that was really exciting. I wonder if :w152: would turn out better in order to kill B center group.

Of course, the idea is not to give you pointers (I would never be so arrogant), but only to have a bit of fun throwing around my lowly ideas and hopefully get a stereo feedback on the game when some stronger players will come around and provide some more relevant comments!

So... here is the game
[edit]
GAME #1 of my second year two of go
[/edit]




Opening : I would say till move 23 or so
Goals :
- just try to keep things simple will be enougth for now.
- avoid fancy moves
-> ok... maybe the pincer at 23 was not that simple for me.

- avoid small moves (if not an urgent move)
-> ok, I dont think I did any.

Middle game : move 24 to Resignation?

- Consolidate position
-> not really a success here.

- Try to avoid playing near black thickness...
->not sure... not easy to judge for me.. maybe 50 is wrong... or even before that ?

But What a fight in the center of the board...

End game : well... no end game.

mimano wrote:Since I am watching the game, I thought I might as well comment - or rather indicate my interrogations, live
Until I find you both playing great. but at , I would have deprived the B group of a base and let it run instead of cutting its route to the center. Probably Q18.

Yeah sure, big hesitation here with Q18...

but dont like something like that

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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mimano wrote: is maybe a bit cautious, I think I would try to invade right now around C14 especially with the strong W group on the right side.

Yes maybe, that was one of my question during the game... when to invade at C18...
but I wanted first to have some more thickness on top too before invading at C18, but that failed and did the opposite and at 49... good bye invasion...
so maybe my wall at K17-13 was enougth to invade sooner...

mimano wrote: Ko fight at you tricked me, preparing the monkey jump, I did not see it coming as W, I would have tried to threat the top right corner with Q18 again I think. Probably worse than your move though.

I was really not sure on that... hesitated a lot... the idea was not just the monkey jump, I really wanted to kill the corner here... but... failed...

mimano wrote: I would not play that, I do not think you can kill the corner. But it is severely reduced, I found the overall sequence nice! A monkey jump is always pleasant to watch. That is, when I am not at the receiving end of it!

yes maybe.. but with that move, maybe I can kill the corner with a second ko ? what a threat...

mimano wrote: :w142: now we're in a huge fight for your immense center area, I have no clue how it will finish!

Me too at the moment, exactly what I wanted to avoid by playing simple

mimano wrote: :w152: I would pierce the elephant eye at P12 because if B connects, the center group is alive, and the weak one on the side as well. So everything to cut in my opinion.

PLayed really to fast here, I clicked and imediatly wanted to remove my stone and play that P12... so that's one more in my todo list : don't play too fast...

mimano wrote: Wow, obviously I had misread You just killed the right group's eye, I did not see that coming. So the fight is on.

Sure... but it's so hard, I still prefer P12...

mimano wrote: :W179: This is just an all-out war. It started SO quiet, I thought you did not like to fight, and now it is just, total mayhem!

I wont say that I dont like to fight... but... I prefer to try to keep thinhs simple... but with my failure to invade at C18, the top/left corner is too big, and I must win the center... so no choice I think...

mimano wrote: Finally your weak group dies. Well, that was really exciting. I wonder if :w152: would turn out better in order to kill B center group.

That's the question ...

mimano wrote: Of course, the idea is not to give you pointers (I would never be so arrogant), but only to have a bit of fun throwing around my lowly ideas and hopefully get a stereo feedback on the game when some stronger players will come around and provide some more relevant comments!

Any comment welcome ! ans I think your comment are straight to the point actually...


I played a second game right after and it is even worse... so not really a good day for me