Life In 19x19

Posted: **Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:11 pm**

I haven't been playing much recently, I don't know why. I haven't really felt like playing, but the game is always on my mind. I've been trying to find some people around the 20kyu range to help out a bit, but I'm not a great teacher. Anyways, my desire to do something Go related got the better of me, and I decided to play a game.

The first part I felt I did wrong was move 45. Right after I played it I felt I should have just connected solidly. This came back to get me a bit in a few moves.

Move 63: I think this should have just connected at F6, it would have played out better for me. Luckily my opponent made a mistake at move 66 which fixed everything for me.

Move 71: I'm not so sure about this, it seems like I could have done something more for the huge central framework I have, but I liked how this ended up. White crawling along the second line wasn't something I was too worried about.

Move 85: This felt like it should have been a two space jump instead, I probably could have come out better than I did here.

For the rest of the game I'm fairly happy with how it went. I wanted to kill his group in the center, but I wasn't really expecting to. Pushing against it made me strong enough to kill the group I cut off though, so I was fine with that. I also thought I might be able to kill the group on the left, but I have been slacking a lot with my life and death studying. 187 at A10 might have done it, but that's obviously not what I played!

Posted: **Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:09 pm**

A few ideas:

Posted: **Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:15 pm**

33: That situation on the left should make your spidey sense tingle. Can you kill? answer:

42: second time your opponent did this mistake. Read carefully, play B2 and watch him squirm.

75: What? No! This move is like twenty levels below the rest of your moves!

L2 is needed on the bottom (W @ K2 destroys all your points), and locally never ever do this-- the move you want is Q6, which gets ahead. This move helps white more than you.

99: This move is a pass.

101: This move is a pass.

102: You needed to have played here.

113: N7 seems necessary from a shape point of view.

137: N14. You must play this or your shape is destroyed.

162: White has a move that wins the game. Can you find it? answer:

185: Wrong way! Did you solve this at my first comment? answer:

Six comments in 200 moves, that is extraordinarily good for 11k. You played a LOT better than your opponent.

Posted: **Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:27 pm**

You missed some kills and you made some ugly shapes, but all in all, you did alright with your attacking white in your territory. Make your shapes prettier and things will go better for you.

Posted: **Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:57 pm**

Hey, thanks a lot guys, I never noticed the weakness in the shape he was making with his 3-3 invasions. I thought I did block the right way at first, but I should have anticipated the wedge, I was trying to map out too big an area I guess. Not killing that group on the left was kind of dumb of me as well, I should have known the way I went about it wouldn't have worked. Thanks a lot for your comments, I guess I'll just have to keep working at it to make it to SDK.

Posted: **Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:31 pm**

A gloss on Daniel's comment on 99:

I've noticed that many players forget the purpose of tactical moves, especially of captures and the capture tesuji.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$c Vital points? $$ --------------------------------------- $$ | . . O . O X . . . . . . . . . X O . . | $$ | a . O O O X . . . . . . . . . X O . b | $$ | . O O X X X . . . . . . . . . X O O . | $$ | O O X , . . . . . , . . . . . X X O O | $$ | X X X . . . . . . . . . . . . . X X X | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

For example, I assume that, even though the eyespace in the left and the right corners look the same, you would see that b is a vital point and a is nothing. The point of a move at the center of a killing shape is to prevent someone from dividing the eyespace into two eyes; that's irrelevant if a group already has two eyes. When your intuition suggests a move to you, you need to ask what the purpose is.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$c Nets? $$ --------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . X X X X O O . X X . . . . O O O . . | $$ | . . . . O X . . . . . . . . . X O . . | $$ | . X . , O . a . . , . . . . b , O . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | O O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | X X O O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . O X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . O . c . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

Which of a, b, and c are useful? They're all nets, of course; they practically guarantee the capture of a single black stone (or, if black plays there, help it escape). But while a helps to keep the two white groups connected, and in the process disconnects two black groups, b doesn't do anything like that; the two edges of the net are already in the same group. C is similar to b. The white groups aren't connected, but the stones cutting them are in atari. The stone which c would capture isn't a cutting stone; it's merely blighted. White hopes that Black plays b and c; if B tries to pull out his stone, White gets weak stones to attack.

So to repeat, you're at a point where you recognize certain patterns (e.g. the net) and you have a good sense of what the tactical purpose of the pattern is (capture a stone), but you aren't yet evaluating the strategic purposes that make some moves big and sente, and other moves small and gote.

One more set of examples:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$c Is capturing/saving the stones big? $$ --------------------------------------- $$ | . . O X X X a . . . . . b X X X O . O | $$ | O O O O O O X . . X . . X O O O O O . | $$ | . X X X X X X . . . . . X X X X X O O | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , X X . | $$ | . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | O O X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . O X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | O O X X X X . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . O O O O X . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | O O X X X c O . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | X X O O O X . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . X O X X X . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | X X O O O X . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . O O . O X . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Each of a, b, and c will capture, or save, three black stones. How much is that worth?

Posted: **Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:07 pm**

For what it's worth, I think the way you blocked was fine, or if it's a mistake, it's a very small one. The real problem was losing sente after the 3-3 invasion.

Life In 19x19

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