Howdy! I’m playing white, and I clearly had a poor opening. (This is my review.) https://online-go.com/review/226965 I lost the game to an inane reading error, but I was clawing back after a bad showing. I need some help understanding how to play the opening as white!
i’m about 9k or 8k (still not sure), but plz feel free to discuss my wrong opinion.
Hey. I am also a kyu player, so take this with a grain of salt. But:
Firstly, I don’t think the opening ended up terribly for you - it looked roughly even by the end.
Your response to Black’s approach to your upper left 4-4 stone (b7) was high; what was your plan there? Black had a stone at the top right, so it wasn’t going to be ideal development for you in that direction.
You chose the right direction to block when he jumped into the corner - your joseki would build a wall facing your stone in the lower left, allowing you to develop the left side.
Urgent before big! Black 15 tenuki to approach your corner seemed crazy to me - I wanted to ignore it and kill the whole upper left immediately.
If you are not going to do that for some reason, peacefully backing off as you did lets him live too easily destroying the potential of your wall. I wanted to pincer, force him to jump in so you can build another wall facing upwards. Now what does he do about the left side?
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agree… i didn’t realize that
I just realised you had a question about dealing with Black’s opening. The idea of the Chinese openings, and the various Kobayashi variants and so on, is to try and trap you into a fight in a place that is to Black’s advantage. As White you need to try and nullify its influence without getting jumped on.
That part seemed to go OK for you. Your cautious approach on the lower right in particular looked great to me.
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I agree with pretty much everything that’s already been said.
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My thanks to everyone for chipping in their thoughts! It’s always good to hear from other kyu players, and I deeply appreciate the dan level review.
I really enjoy polite play, but I think the message that I should have seen this would not be that kind of game, and adjusted my style, at lest by by move 15 (the approach on the bottom left) is an important one for my development.
Again, many thanks!