Life In 19x19

Gotraskhalana wrote:

Bill Spight wrote:For basics, you don't need much in the way of language, looking at the diagrams is pretty much good enough.

I think that's just it that not everyone will figure things out by themselves from example diagrams without someone pointing them to the relevant key patterns.

If we are talking about basics, the diagrams show the relevant key patterns.

Bill Spight wrote: If we are talking about basics, the diagrams show the relevant key patterns.

Of course they do. The question is what different people see.

An example: A colleague told me about a property of certain quadrilaterals and I asked for an example. I looked at it for ten seconds or so and my colleague exasperatedly said "How can you search for the quadrilateral? There are only four lines in this picture!". But I needed to look at it for some time to view the quadrilateral as object. It is hard to explain, but there is a non-trivial step in pattern recognition.

A go example: During a review on a big upright go board in a go club, the reviewer said at a certain moment. "The biggest point is here *click* because it makes good shape. However, Black played here. Now, the biggest point is here *click* because it destroys Black's chance at good shape." After that the two players had played a two-digit number of moves before they came around to play this point, and after every move, the reviewer played this point saying that it was the biggest point on the board and retracted it again to proceed. Not only have I not forgotten this shape, I recognize it immediately on the board without thinking. I don't think that seeing it in a book would have come close to this effect.

So I won enough games on KGS that I got promoted back to 6K. I put up a challenge, and for the first time in months, got challenged to an even game by a 5k. I thought hard and felt like I did well, playing a good wedge on the left, making a nice moyo on the bottom by attacking the group on the bottom right, and fighting in the top right to kill a bunch of my opponent's stones. But when things settled down a bit and I was finally able to count rather than just making certain everything was alive, I realized I was slightly behind, and no matter what I was trying, I wasn't catching up.

Over the years I've had several games when I've reached 6k and get challenged by a 5k who decides to play at the same slowish pace I do. They tend to be some of the more interesting and enjoyable games, but with my usually losing by a small margin, in the single digits or so. This game was going the same way... until my opponent spotted a weakness in my moyo that I didn't see, enabling him to kill a half dozen of my stones. The one bright spot is that even if I had fixed that weakness, I still would have lost. It's too bad to have a game end that abruptly, but at least I didn't blunder a won game as far as I can tell.

On the other hand, I just can't figure where I went wrong to wind up with my opponent having a small lead that just wouldn't go away.

Black's play in the opening is generally ok except for 27 (must hane) and 59 (White cannot actually hold Black in. tsumego - find the way to break out).

I thought about the hane on but rejected it because I was worried about the cross-cut.

And on I was trying to find a way to break out and kill those white stones on the edge, but kept seeing a shortage of liberties on my side.

Fedya wrote:I thought about the hane on but rejected it because I was worried about the cross-cut.

And on I was trying to find a way to break out and kill those white stones on the edge, but kept seeing a shortage of liberties on my side.

seems like the wrong direction, why not push through at N15 and split? White is weak all around here and you aren't since you've captured the key stones. Once white fixes the weakness black getting into the top area seems unlikely.

seems like a mistake to me? 6 points in gote when you could have played R4 and taken control of the direction of game.

Exercise at move 148

After White defended both his top territory and his central group up to 148, you seem to lose your fighting spirit.
There are still possibilities:

- in the centre, there's a sente move, that will later earn you a few points
- White's smallest and weakest group is the lower right; can you use sente there to your advantage?
- there is aji in the lower left white territory, in two places, which you can perhaps combine
- at the top there is a local sente endgame move we all know

How to play these areas, in which order, to keep sente and squeeze the most profit out of the whole board?

swannod wrote: seems like a mistake to me? 6 points in gote when you could have played R4 and taken control of the direction of game.

I think it's reverse sente because W O13 threatens to capture Black's top group with P18.

It's also a little more than 6 points because Black is eventually going to have to play moves to take the S16 stones off the board, which he doesn't have to do if he captures the three stones as in the game. Also he has lost the opportunity to do things like play a monkey jump along the top edge.

For move 23 I thought the whole idea of the kobayashi formation was that if white approaches close like this you pincer? The played move I see a lot in the the low chinese but with kobayashi you play the one space or two space high pincer in that position? That way you get the bottom and you prevent white from settling easy on the bottom both at once

Just curious - but I doubt the game hangs on that move.

Majordomo wrote:For move 23 I thought the whole idea of the kobayashi formation was that if white approaches close like this you pincer? The played move I see a lot in the the low chinese but with kobayashi you play the one space or two space high pincer in that position? That way you get the bottom and you prevent white from settling easy on the bottom both at once

Normally with Kobayashi you do pincer. For a long time the dogma in the Western go circles was close approach was a mistake and pincer punished it (and probably reflecting pro consensus given its scarcity in games) but recently pros have tried the close approach. I'm not aware of any definitive conclusions. One difference here though is black already has that knight's move on the top right and it's possible it might become inefficient with a pincer. But then again it might be efficient and white might end up regretting approaching the top side and giving black a stone there (e.g. if he wanted to counterpincer the pincer after jumping out from the corner a bit in sente). I'm not really sure. One thing I would say though is if black makes the knight's move as Fedya did then white attach and pull back is probably an overplay and black should then pincer due to lower side support. White would be wise to play more lightly, such as attach at 3-3 once and then extend directly to r8, black r4 and white extends again to r11.

Fedya wrote:I thought about the hane on but rejected it because I was worried about the cross-cut.

Oh, boo hoo! After you play you will outnumber your opponent locally 4 stones to 2 and you control the corner so that he cannot get an eye there, and you are worried about the cross cut? You will never become a dangerous opponent with that attitude.

Danton wrote:De l'audace! Encore de l'audace! Toujours de l'audace!

Courage, mon vieux.

Uberdude wrote:For a long time the dogma in the Western go circles was close approach was a mistake and pincer punished it (and probably reflecting pro consensus given its scarcity in games) but recently pros have tried the close approach.

Eastern go circles too until recently...

Tesuji practice!

Can you find a way to break out? It is a fairly long sequence, but all forcing moves, with one nice tesuji, so not too difficult to read. In a real game, the trick is to realize that there really is something there, then keep reading until you find it.

is a nice invasion point to reduce the W moyo. An alternative worth considering is to attack the W group on the lower right. The purpose of this attack would not be to kill, but to reduce the upper W moyo! If you can take away this group's base, W will have to run, and running toward his moyo should give you opportunities to play reducing moves in sente while attacking. Plus you get the initial corner profit from the attack -- moves like S3 and P6 are quite large.

is the right idea, but peeping at P6 does a better job of destroying W eye shape. And it is a shame to let W get S3, so taking that point first would be huge. Does S3 in the game really make the W group alive? At a minimum, S2 remains very large sente.

:b107: connection is very submissive, possibly the losing move, certainly a losing attitude. Fight the urge to play moves like this! Before connecting on dame, always look for more active options. Here you have built up enough center strength to counter attack! The four W center stones are nearly surrounded, with no chance to make eyes. J9 or J8 might well kill them all. Certainly you can at least pick off the two cutting stones, making the connection unnecessary. Given all this aji, you could also simply continue to reduce the W moyo around J13. If this group gets stronger, coming back to kill the W center becomes more likely. W should be more worried about safety than B around here.

:w132: (S2) is a huge endgame move, worth around 20 points, apart from life/death considerations. It should have been sente for you earlier, as it threatens to kill the W group. It is not even obvious that W can find a way to live after this move.

But worse than letting W get this move first is letting him get it in sente. You cannot win an endgame if you let your opponent take all the big points, while you respond locally to prevent further damage. You must ignore some of your opponents threats to take your share of the big points. You have to be willing to threaten mutual destruction. Moves like K14 or J14 or even just J13 are sente for you, but only if you take them, rather than following W around everywhere. Make W respond to your threats.

:w150: is a mistake worth learning. Find a tesuji sequence for B here.

Knotwilg wrote:Exercise at move 148

After White defended both his top territory and his central group up to 148, you seem to lose your fighting spirit.

I thought I was fighting. I just couldn't find anything that worked.

There are still possibilities:

- in the centre, there's a sente move, that will later earn you a few points

I hope you're talking about K7.

- White's smallest and weakest group is the lower right; can you use sente there to your advantage?

S6 is gote, so I should play S1?

- there is aji in the lower left white territory, in two places, which you can perhaps combine

I tried E5 in the game. It doesn't work, because after white responds with E6, Black has to defend above or else White will play E8. (White actually missed E8 in the game.)

- at the top there is a local sente endgame move we all know

I don't think the ogeima at N19 is sente. I played O19 and didn't get much out of it. Or are you suggesting something like M18? I don't think that works, either.

How to play these areas, in which order, to keep sente and squeeze the most profit out of the whole board?

:w150: is a mistake worth learning. Find a tesuji sequence for B here.

C2, follwed by C3, actually works, doesn't it? Black has a fighting chance of getting a living group in the corner. I think.