Hi, I won this game by 0.5 points: https://online-go.com/game/9790427 . Endgame isn’t usually something I think is one of my strong points, so it would be good to get some feedback for such a close game where even small mistakes from either side could have been crucial (and I couldn’t justify slack moves as simplifying the game, which I do more than I probably should.)
Feel free to take the endgame from as early or late as you think is useful. I can’t remember at what point in the game I really started trying to think in terms of endgame, but it probably wasn’t early enough (possibly move 140?).
(I’m sure things could be said about the early part of the game, but I got a win against a significantly higher ranked opponent, and I think I understand what was happening, so I’m not particularly looking for more analysis of that part.)
I posted a tentative review, but the top right is quite complicated.
T3 cost you 2 points.
White takes the lead in the game after black’s very slow moves on the second line (B7, B12, E18), but then black catches up by capturing the J4 stones.
@SanDiego Yes, the upper right was one area I wasn’t very happy with what I came up with but didn’t know what else was better. I don’t think I really considered sacrificing those stones, but in hindsight that looks good in exchange for solidity and sente. Of course, ideally I would have noticed how weak I actually was there and fixed earlier.
Responding to monkey jumps still confuses me more than it should (unless I’ve got the page at sensei’s library open in front of me!) I’m glad it was only 2 points I lost.
@Jokes_Aside I didn’t realise just how small G7 was! And I see why my followup was a mistake. As with the upper right, I don’t think I even considered sacrificing in order to take sente. That’s something clear for me to learn from this, I think.
In my Go journey, the biggest lesson I got from end game is how to treat sente. End game makes it countable, and provides a good base for intuition, i.e. treat sente followup as given, etc. It’s not a trivial system, but end game is as good picture as it gets when trying to get a good grasp of sente management.
Interestingly, the same mechanics apply throughout the game. Even though they are not so clearly countable, being able to estimate the value of sente at each point of the game, allows for good decision making and more active play style.