Toge wrote:I've lost the past 5 games by over 20 points each. Defending is much easier than attacking, so I'm often at loss trying to figure out effective attacks. Go is a game about fighting and not territory-building after all.
I don't think your last sentence is necessarily correct, but nevermind.
Here are some general remarks about what I think is your problem. I am not going to go into move-my-move commentary, other can do it better, I am sure.
I think that your problem is that you misunderstand what attacking means.
You attack like a kyu player - with the expectation to kill. But this is not what attack means in Go, at least not for dan players. At that level you not often get to kill something decisive, or at least - you should not be counting on that. You attack to gain strength or gain points or remove your own weaknesses. This is the basics. In the game you show, many of your moves could only be justified by expectation of killing a group, and this should not be so. Think about it.
I think that once you ask yourself this:
I don't expect to kill, but I still need to get something out of the attack. What can I gain?
And then you look around, evaluate the position before and after attack, and compare the advantages you accumulated - in terms of points, prospective points, or thickness. Sometimes you attack to prevent attacks or strengthen your own stones.
Simply stated - I seriously do not remember when I last time attacked with expectation of killing - unless I was playing a non-dan player. Sure - I killed anyhow, but this was just because of mistakes and a bonus, not the basic assumption.
One more thing:
Often if there is not much to gain from attacks, it is better not to attack, and patiently leave the weakness for later - it will pay off! If in no other way that eventually he will have to waste a move to defend it. Probably the most common way to 'use' an opponent's weakness is that you can play more loosely and he cannot attack to strong or his own weaknesses will get exposed. This means you can approach closer, make more points, and so on. If you just attack blindly - all you accomplish is to strengthen him and remove his weaknesses - and this in turn weakens you. The game you showed was a perfect example of that.
Go is often the game of patience and calculation and balancing small advantages, not of blindly attacking.
Although attacking is more fun, I agree with that.
I think that if you understand this and start thinking about attacking more maturely, your strength will jump up by a stone or two.
Think like a dan player!
...K15 ? It cuts black's threatened connect-under while looking at growing your left. I wouldn't not play it because it looks like the expected move. After all, top in the game did seem a source of grief.