Life In 19x19

I am going to use this first post in an unorthodox way -- I'm going to continuously update it so that it reflects my current goals and study strategies. I'll then use the subsequent posts as normal to chart progress and changes to these goals and plans. My aim is to have it serve as the focal point of my journal.

Goal Setting:

Goal: IGS 9k
Target Date: 5/1/2017
I’m 10k right now. I set this goal at the end of the summer of 2016 when I started to take the game seriously.

Skill Assessment:

Current Strengths:
1. Global strategy -- I have developed a good sense of the full board, how the various groups fit together, and how to take advantage of those relationships.
2. Corner Josekis -- Of the josekis that I have studied, I feel like I have a good understanding of them, and I'm doing a good job of using this to exploit non-joseki play.
3. Tsumego -- I have improved tremendously over the last few months.
4. Moyos -- Right now this is a big part of my game, and I am doing a good job of utilizing them strategically.

Current Weaknesses:
1. Sloppy play -- I frequently make moves that I know to be bad. For example, I will recognize a key future move, make a mental note of when to play it, but then forget to play it. This is almost always because I get caught up in the game and play without stopping to assess fully the implications of the move. Right now, this is the cause of the majority of my losses -- usually throwing away games that I've already won by large margins.
2. Slow play -- I often make moves in a game that I can easily identify as slow upon review.
3. Tsumego -- While I've improved significantly, I still lose groups because I don't settle them properly. Either not making the right moves to defend or not defending when necessary.
4. Corner Josekis -- I still encounter josekis that I have not studied about 15-20% of the time. These encounters are no longer disastrous, but I frequently give up points due to non-optimal play.
5. Sabaki -- I struggle to settle small groups inside enemy territory.

Work Plan:

I will do the following:
1. Play regularly.
2. Review games consistently and thoroughly.
3. Work on my mental discipline to limit sloppy play.
4. Study topics of weakness -- Tsumego, Corner Josekis, and Sabaki strategies.
5. Meet every two weeks with instructor to review games, answer questions, etc.
6. Actively participate in L19 by commenting on others games and getting feedback on my own.

Current Study Materials:

These are the books that I’m spending the most time with right now:
Chikun, Cho. All About Life and Death. Vol 1 & 2. Tokyo: The Ishis Press, 1993.
Shinji, Takao. The 21st Century Dictionary of Basic Joseki. Vol 1 & 2. Tokyo: Kiseido Publishing Company, 2012.
Takemiya, Masaki. Enslosure Josekis./ Tokyo: The Ishi Press, 1983.
Yi-Lun, Yang. Sabaki: How to Manage Weak Stones. Lecture Notes. 2003.
Nick Sibicky’s lectures: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_msct ... M8yAtaju1A

I’m also continuing to work through the following, but they are lower priorities:
Hunter, Richard. Counting Liberties and Winning Capturing Races. Slate and Shell: Richmond, 2003.
Ishida, Akira and James Davies. Attack and Defense. Tokyo: Kiseido Publishing Company: Tokyo, 1996.
Van Zeijst, Rob, and Richard Bozulich. Attacking and Defending Moyos. Tokyo: Kiseido Publishing Company: Tokyo, 2010.

This game does a very good job of documenting some of my current strengths and weaknesses.

Key white moves:

Taking advantage of non-joseki play: 4
Good strategy: 24, 66, 108
Improved tsumego: 48, 50, and 92
Moyo play: 108
Disastrous,sloppy play: 152

I am finally officially ranked as 9k on KGS. I got outplayed and lost by 6.5. But I had two chances to win on moves 173 and 217. I just misread each and failed to make the right move. But I was in striking distance of winning. We reviewed the game, and so, I have included both my and my opponent's comments as much as I could remember.

Hi BG,

What if you block at S17 first.

If you had already blocked at S17, then these 2 W stones are dead.

Take. What this move does is let W keep his time bomb ticking -- as long as you let the ladder linger, it means at some point in the future, and probably at a time of W's choosing, he'll defuse the bomb -- and get 2 moves somewhere. That's why you should take directly.

Take.

Locally, no problem with 3-3. But you should take.

Very strange you spent a move here and still not take.

You don't need to set up for an invasion.
W's moyo has multiple standard invasion spots --
examples: earlier, C12, C8, etc.
I feel the whole time you should've taken the lone stone and fixed the ladder ASAP.
( Maybe others feel differently. )

Connect.

D12 cut-atari.

B17. If you don't connect at D12, take care of your corner.

C19.

Connect.

Gote. W can cut.

W can cut at E11.

Your opponent is right, the descent at should be sente! Try at c19 for white. Also I think white should skip the for exchange and play at directly:

At move 33 you write: "Opponent like A (C8) better. See variation for possible continuation. I feel like it is still to early, but agree that A is the right move when the time comes"

At move 45 you write: "Seems like it is now or never on the invasion. Opponent correctly pointed out that C8 might have been a good place to start. This invasion ends up ceding a good chunk of the bottom to opponent, but i didn't see C8 at the time."

This is exactly what you describe in your first post when you talk about your weaknesses. Under sloppy play you write: "I frequently make moves that I know to be bad. For example, I will recognize a key future move, make a mental note of when to play it, but then forget to play it."

Good to know your weaknesses! You did take some time here to think. Why do you suppose you forgot about it?

FWIW, I agree with EdLee that taking the laddered stone is something to do at the first opportunity, lest it come back to haunt you.

Thank you everyone for the comments. These are great!

Ed, I completely agree on the ladder. A follow up question on one of your comments.

EdLee wrote: You don't need to set up for an invasion.
W's moyo has multiple standard invasion spots --
examples: earlier, C12, C8, etc.

Is there a good reference you could recommend that covers these kinds of invasions? This is an area in which I need to do a little systematic studying.

daal wrote:At move 33 you write: "Opponent like A (C8) better. See variation for possible continuation. I feel like it is still to early, but agree that A is the right move when the time comes"

At move 45 you write: "Seems like it is now or never on the invasion. Opponent correctly pointed out that C8 might have been a good place to start. This invasion ends up ceding a good chunk of the bottom to opponent, but i didn't see C8 at the time."

This is exactly what you describe in your first post when you talk about your weaknesses. Under sloppy play you write: "I frequently make moves that I know to be bad. For example, I will recognize a key future move, make a mental note of when to play it, but then forget to play it."

Good to know your weaknesses! You did take some time here to think. Why do you suppose you forgot about it?

My comments were unclear. Sorry about that. I did not see the C8 invasion at all during the game. My opponent pointed this out at move 33 during the review. I agreed that it was the right point for an invasion, but felt move 33 was too early. I think I should have played the move at 45 instead. That said, seeing the right move at move 33 and then not making it at 45 is exactly the kind of thing that I often do.

To answer you question generally, I don't know why I make these kinds of mistakes. I'm trying to pay more attention to determine if there is a pattern. I think a big issue, however, is that at times, I just lose focus mentally during the game.

After reading Uberdudes Post here http://lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 11#p217511 (what later happened in this game), I would like to change my suggestion for from c19 to d19
I would still suggest skipping the 60-61 exchange though

I'm starting to think that deep down in my subconscious I just don't want my rank to improve. Yet another game in which I manage to significantly outplay my opponent to build up a very comfortable lead. Then, throw it all away by failing to make a critical move that I would have seen had I just bothered to look. I honestly think that I lose 70-80 percent of my games this way right now. In this case, I admittedly had the extra pressure of playing with tighter time constraints than I usually do, but 30 seconds was more than enough time to see the snapback. I was just too anxious to play the next move and did not even stop to assess whether or not I needed another move to settle the group.

If you need a little schadenfreude pick-me-up, take a look at move 241...

Yes, White 240 was a terrible oversight. But go to White 236.

Edit: And while you're at it, take another look at White 232 and Black 233.



It's not over till the fat lady screams.

Bill Spight wrote:Yes, White 240 was a terrible oversight. But go to White 236.

Edit: And while you're at it, take another look at White 232 and Black 233.

You just had to make it worse! But yes, you're right. Thanks!

This is an experiment. I'm not posting this to solicit comments on my moves. Rather, because the majority of the review requests on L19 seem to be from stronger players, I'm attempting to pass on the generosity that they have shown in reviewing my games. My hope is that these comments will be useful to those to whom I can plausibly offer advice.

One request -- if you read this and find it useful, could you let me know? I'm happy to try to do more of these if they are helpful. But the extra detail beyond my normal reviews is time consuming. So, I'd rather not do it unless someone finds it helpful.

Finally, Bill Spight was nice enough to give me comments on a draft of this. So, I've included his comments as well. Needless to say, he saw a number of things that I didn't!

I think that your game raises an interesting point, which is maybe minor, but which has been on my mind a little while now, so maybe I can learn something, which is the issue of making L+2 group vs J+1 group

In such a position, black can live unconditionally with a creating the J+1 group or with b creating the L+2 group:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . . e . . . . .
$$ | f . X X O . O . .
$$ | . . X O O . . . .
$$ | a b X O . . . . .
$$ | c X O O . . . . .
$$ | d O O . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .[/go]

this happened in your game at move 38, where you make the j+1 and it happens again in your Variation showing the joseki in the upper right at move 52, where you plan to make l+2.
I usually play b, because I'm more familiar with the L+2, but I'm not sure if this is always best.
In the endgame, in both cases, e seems to be white sente if he wants it, but white can also play on the other side getting c in sente (vs l+2) respectively the descent at d in sente(vs.j+1)(the sequence making it sente is actually nice to know!). With the clever attack from within af f shown at senseis, white seems to be getting a little more endgame even in case of the j+1 group(either capture a stone in gote, or get c AND d sente).

So my questions: Did you consider both possibilies at both times(move 38 and 52)?
And: Can someone explain to me, in which cases making j+1 is actually better? Else, I will just keep making l+2 groups.

Schachus wrote:Can someone explain to me, in which cases making j+1 is actually better? Else, I will just keep making l+2 groups.

J+1 is better if you don't want the descent on top side (away from the hanging connection) to be sente (it's sente for a long ko against the L+2). L+2 is better if you don't want the descent near connection to be sente. L+2 is probably a better default move to play: I suffered from not doing this recently at the London Open where I unnecessarily died in the endgame against xhu because I made the J+1 not L+2 (he did the placement and as the hanging connected tail was several stones I didn't want to lose them): 6th game in http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewto ... 38#p215238.

Schachus wrote: Did you consider both possibilies at both times(move 38 and 52)?

I hadn't considered it at all. At 38. I usually just create the J+1 by default for the same reason you create the L+2. At 32, I created the L+2 simply because that is what seems to be the joseki play. I'm glad you asked this! Looks like I should be following your default if I have a choice.