Life In 19x19

At move 182 my opponent played a monkey jump on my territory, which ultimately ended up costing me the game. Is there some kind of sure-fire way stall monkey jump advance?

There's also a difficult submarine play at move 32 where I don't think my response was optimal.

How about move 56? Is white supposed to escape?

Here's the game.

I don't think it was the monkey jump itself, but the combination of weaknesses at p3 & k3. In retrospect, maybe just blocking at k2, which protects against that cut? It's a point or two worse, but safer.

Edit: Also maybe preventing the monkey jump was bigger than starting the ko?

Why not H1 at 183? Am I missing something obvious?

I also agree with emeraldemon that the ko wasn't bigger. Doesn't G2 look bigger than P14 at move 181, though?

If I could say these things without question marks, I bet I'd be a dan player...

Tsuyoku wrote:Why not H1 at 183? Am I missing something obvious?

I also agree with emeraldemon that the ko wasn't bigger. Doesn't G2 look bigger than P14 at move 181, though?

If I could say these things without question marks, I bet I'd be a dan player...

If H1 at 183, then white escapes and black can't block k1 directly because white can ko to break into his territory. It's a few points worse than what was played. G2 is bigger than p14 at 181.

I think that your problems go way farther back than the monkey jump.

1) The the whole attack from 41 through 53 seems premature.
In particular, look at move 41. You don't need O7 yet. What if he takes it first? You play N8, and in conjuction with your wall, you are making 7th rank territory.

When attacking, you should surround him completely first, then second, you go for the eyes. You went for the eyes first, he defended, and as a result he became stronger. He built the wall from O5 to R5 while defending. This wall caused problems for you later when he used it to attack southward.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Before your attack
$$ . . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . O O . .
$$ . . . . X . . X . .
$$ . . . . . . X . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . . .
$$ --------------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B After your attack
$$ . . . . O . . . . .
$$ . . . . O O O O . .
$$ . . . X X . . X . .
$$ . . . . . a X b . .
$$ . . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . . .
$$ --------------------[/go]

2) The J3 stone seemed confused from the moment it hit the board. Are you trying to attack the lower left corner? You can't: it is too solid. Are you trying to extend from your lower right? It is too far: he can invade immediately at L3.

3) The whole sequence of 63/65/67 is attacking a corner that is too strong, and not surprisingly, you end up with bad shape as he pushes you back. He ends up with a loose but effective group that surrounds your southern group.
Your last chance there was to play 79 at M6 and maybe fight your way out.


So, as you stumble into yose, your southern group has bad shape at its east end and weaknesses facing a strong enemy wall at its west end. So his attack succeeds.


In summary, the attack did not materialize out of nowhere. You did several things that allowed it to happen. And the common characteristic of those is that you attacked where you could not succeed.

So rather than worrying about how to best beat a monkey jump, concentrate on proper attacking style.
* Surround first, go for eyes next
* Remember that any time you attack something, it becomes stronger. Before attacking, ask yourself if you can cope with that additional enemy strength.


One last point: you may have been able to fight back with 199 at N2. I'm too lazy to read it out. But note the shape issue: when you see the empty triangle, N2 should appear on your short list of moves to be considered.

When you see this bad shape:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ . . . . . . . .
$$ . . X X X . . .
$$ . . . . O X . .
$$ . . . O O X . .
$$ . . . . . . . .
$$ ----------------[/go]

...you should have an automatic reflex to play this:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ . . . . . . . .
$$ . . X X X . . .
$$ . . . . O X . .
$$ . . 1 O O X . .
$$ . . . . . . . .
$$ ----------------[/go]

Toge wrote: How about move 56? Is white supposed to escape?...

If you ignore W12, yes. After move 11, your formation is perfectly reasonable vs the lower corner. When he approaches with 12, you have a weakness. You can tenuki - which I might have done too - but there are consequences.

Joaz Banbeck wrote:
2) The J3 stone seemed confused from the moment it hit the board. Are you trying to attack the lower left corner? You can't: it is too solid. Are you trying to extend from your lower right? It is too far: he can invade immediately at L3.

This caught my eye. J3 looks fine to me, if white invades black's shoulder hit seems to kill it. It's a bit far from the lower left to seriously threaten to connect there. Also, my reading for the bottom right seemed to indicate that black was screwed after 198. (the best i saw is a ko, but white's threat is too large and there's no threats for black, so black will lose the game)

Shaddy wrote:
This caught my eye. J3 looks fine to me...

Ooops! Yep, you're right - L3 dies.

Shaddy wrote:... the bottom right seemed to indicate that black was screwed after 198. (the best i saw is a ko, but white's threat is too large and there's no threats for black, so black will lose the game)

I disagree here. As best I can tell, white doesn't have time to set up a ko. Those three stones die very quickly. If there is a ko, I'd like to see it.

What I tried to do was to enlarge bottom territory at the expense of white's enlargement. Perhaps it was too far away though. At move 39 I should have started surrounding from bottom side instead?

I don't see the difference in strength between those two diagrams, Joaz. Keima from kosumi relation has a weakness. It can be easily cut. Nobi at N4 should protect against it. Move 51 was terrible. I definitely should have played from P4 instead for what would be essentially same purpose. I'm really bad at attacking. Many of those exchanges seem to amount to nothing useful, while making counter-attacks possible.

Thanks for comments. Much appreciated.

Joaz Banbeck wrote:

Shaddy wrote:
This caught my eye. J3 looks fine to me...

Ooops! Yep, you're right - L3 dies.

Shaddy wrote:... the bottom right seemed to indicate that black was screwed after 198. (the best i saw is a ko, but white's threat is too large and there's no threats for black, so black will lose the game)

I disagree here. As best I can tell, white doesn't have time to set up a ko. Those three stones die very quickly. If there is a ko, I'd like to see it.

Yup, you're right. I missed the second move there.

At 190 shouldn't White then just play K3 and capture the 7 stones? If Black plays something like L3, White M2 wins the fight. Fundamentally Black can not fill from behind at H2 in positions like this.