Life In 19x19

I want to start actually recording and properly reviewing my games, and maybe a few pro games as well. Obviously not (yet!) a dan player so I expect to make a lot of bad comments or thoughts on my reviews and I do tend to ramble on a bit sometimes but that's how I hope to get better!

Here's one I played just today on KGS, won by ~30 points but after reviewing it's clear I made some pretty big mistakes. might try and go over a pro game later as well.

Had a look over a pro game as I said, some interesting stuff in this one including a very large ko. Take aways include connecting your groups and being willing to let your opponent take moyos/territory as long as you get something in return.

The first 12 problems of Cho Chikun's Encyclopedia of Life and Death - part 3.

I've done the first 50 of these once through already but thought I'd go through them again and make a note of my responses. Going through them on a board I realised a few I initially thought I had solved were actually wrong! I think I've actually got the right responses for all of these now though.

I'm going to try and work through this whole series though I doubt I'll post all of them here, just ones I like/can't do or occasionally groups of them like this.

I should say as well that these problems can be found here https://tsumego.tasuki.org/ along with others

second KGS game this weekend, I'll probably upload at weekends and not much during the week due to having to earn money to live (in order to play go )...

Overall very happy with the way I played here but I lost it all with some silly errors right at the end, need to stop playing so quickly online!

Have a day off today so managed to get a game/review in on KGS. A fairly short one which I won by resignation after a big fight, I'm still playing far too quickly online, a habit I've picked up by playing (and mostly losing) a lot of blitz games... This is probably why I'm still only a 2 kyu online but pushing 1dan on a real board!

I'll be playing the Cambridge Trigantius tournament in a week and a bit and this is probably a good moment to set a couple of goals:

1 - try and use up all my time in every game (presuming it goes to the end!) and spend a lot more thinking about late opening/early middle game

2 - try and win all my games, something I've never achieved in any tournament I've played in... There's only three rounds so it shouldn't be too impossible. At the very least I'd like to win every game against people ranked as 1 dan or lower.

I'll try and record/remember every game as best I can so I can post them here and review properly afterwards. I already feel more confident in game after these few posts and reviews, even if I haven't actually got any better!

Struttnoddy wrote:I'll be playing the Cambridge Trigantius tournament in a week

Me too, see you there!

Another pro game, this time a golden oldy, perhaps a bit outdated but for someone at my level this is so far beyond how I could hope to be playing that it doesn't really matter!


I really enjoyed this game because there was so much going on, I think the main points to take away from here are thinking about direction of play and being willing to make large scale trades - as long as my counting is good enough! In addition I learned some more generic corner sequences that I haven't seen/haven't studied before.

My three games from Trigantius last weekend, unfortunately I only won 2/3, but I played poorly in the first one. I did manage to use my time more effectively than I usually do though so I achieved at least one of the aims I set myself!

Generally I was happy with my play in the last two, particularly my reading ability, something I've definitely got better at recently. However, I struggle a lot with evaluating the relative strengths/weaknesses of both mine and by opponent's groups. This leads me to tenuki when I shouldn't or invade/cut when I'm not strong enough.

I think my aim going forward from this is to try and play much more solidly, perhaps even slowly (which might lead me to lose a bit but that's ok) to try and better understand how groups are strong or weak.

A couple comments on the beginning of the first game from someone who is weaker than you:

There's no way that move 15 is "the game-losing mistake".

Move 31 feels like very weird shape. If it is really the best move then I feel that things have definitely gone wrong by now.

I was very surprised that the R9 stone just hung out there so long. R11 feels like a really great multipurpose move for you (say on move 9 or 15).

dfan wrote: There's no way that move 15 is "the game-losing mistake".

Move 31 feels like very weird shape. If it is really the best move then I feel that things have definitely gone wrong by now.

I was very surprised that the R9 stone just hung out there so long. R11 feels like a really great multipurpose move for you (say on move 9 or 15).

Thanks for the comments! I agree move 15 in itself isn't game losing. I mean that I handled the following fight badly and traced it back to that move. It's probably not terrible by itself though as you say

I agree move 31 feels weird, like I'm trying to salvage something that's already gone wrong

I think R11 was always in my sights, unfortunately the fight ran away with me and I never got time for it. I think I should play it at move 9 then approach the corner given it's probably sente for me

Tsumego question.



How does Black continue?

Bill Spight wrote:Tsumego question.

How does Black continue?

Yeah it's tricky, I wasn't sure I had the right answer on that one! Here are some of my musings on it, best answer I can find is seki but I'm still not at all convinced as black ends up with serious problems on the outside. Anyone have any better ideas?

A no komi game against a 2 dan at the go club in Milton Keynes. Generally happy but my endgame continues to be pretty atrocious (especially in the early endgame) and I made a couple of simple joseki mistakes (but I learnt something new so that's good!).

The end result was black by 15 or 20 ish without komi, although this is just a casual game in a pub so I think calling myself 2dan just yet would be a little premature

*At the end I say I should think more about the "early middle game" this is probably true but I really meant the early ENDgame!*

A recent game between Lee Sedol and Mi Yuting in round 1 of the 20th Chinese League A

I wanted to really focus on the opening and early middle game with this one, trying to guess the next move and understand when I'm wrong. Several of the moves I found quite difficult to understand (see the diagram below) but I felt like I could follow most things.

This is a really interesting game and I'm definitely going to come back to the second half to look more closely at the fighting and try to read out some of the more complicated variations myself.