Life In 19x19

Really, the title captures it. I think the game was close when he resigned, maybe small advantage-me (and losing a large group is always demoralizing) while he had the advantage earlier in the game. I added some sparse comments. A lot of local exchanges I suspect were sub-ideal (and/or "wrong") for one or more players, but I don't really know any better - I'd especially like comments regarding these (where 'these' is anything you notice). Some stars are around places I felt particularly bemused. My go has been in a somewhat bad way for a while now.



Edit: I evidently don't know how to post sgfs.

EDIT: Just saw your comments on move 4. I don't know why you think it's bad, though it's plausible that professional opinion might slant that way, but I'm sure there's really nothing wrong with this move except at a level somewhat higher than your (or my!) own. Certainly it has appeared in some strong professional games, if not that many.

11: Not knowing the joseki continuation is okay, but what reasoning do you have for pushing to reduce your liberties, then pushing from behind along the third line without jumping ahead whilst worrying about black's move at D5 or B5. I don't know much about the choices of strong players here, but I think it is hard to not choose either a) B4 and D4 to protect the cut in sente, then mabye H5, or b) B5 or D5 to protect the cut in gote, at the cost of black getting the big move on the outside. Your particular choice seems inferior to both, even if both of them are not the best

22: It is not obvious to me that this isn't the biggest thing on the board. Black D5 puts a big question mark over the safety of the F4 group, and if black gets a good result here (which seems likely), the D10 stone may also be misplaced.

28: I can't say what's best, but I like the idea of changing direction here - I think black D18 should be at C16 to prevent white doing this. If you change direction now it's just like you blocked the other way, but black gets less.

36: Normal sequence to stop black is to not do this at all . This woudl be a great result if you didn't choose to try and make territory specifically just there, but since you did, you should have blocked differently earlier. I think this is still okay for white, if not fantastic.


I won't comment on the rest of the game, but those early things stood out to me.

Some comments where I feel capable of offering anything constructive:

topazg wrote:Some comments where I feel capable of offering anything constructive:

Nice review. I took the liberty of adding a few more comments.

Thanks for the excellent review, guys.

Yeah, the high approach to 4 from a hoshi is good for black (though locally bad) eh, was my (disregarded) concern.

My 12 was an example of joseki poisoning I think. If 2/3 of the stones are in different places, this move is necessary, you know

At 22, that's a good point I missed - I chose to gain thickness, then I fixed conservatively. I do agree that playing here is good and that trying to play fast by tenuki-ing is not better (though it's easy to second guess yourself in places like this).

Top, yeah, direction direction.

Your point about needing to count to decide how to continue at 56 is great, mitsun. I think to get stronger I really need to integrate counting and decision-making at junctures like this.


I'm going to have another whirl on tygem today, wish me luck (and if I come out with a decent win record, I'm going to drop this KGS 2k for tygem/wbaduk 1d once and for all -_-)