I just had my first exciting game of Go! I mean by that that some fundamentals starts to sink in, that there was back and forth, and most importantly, I feel like I understand where things when south, and, where I’m proud of myself : when I was about to resign (move 37), I told myself : “Calm down and try to fight like someone who has nothing to lose and trust your end game and the lessons you have learnt about life and death.”
So my macro analysis is that :
I did well in the beginning (helped from my not-very-fast opponent’s start)
I screwed up early mid-game (move 36)
I did a great job (for my level) at life/death/eyes at the end game to overcome the deficit.
To help my learning, I would like to ask 2 questions, one macro, and one specific.
Macro : Does my analysis of my game accurate ?
Specific : I waited to have sente to play at D9 (move 76) as I read it was possible to put a stone there to create eyes. I feel like I should have also played D8 to make it impossible. Am I right ? And when should have I done it ?
Bonus : Feel free to give me your opinion on anything else. I’m trying to structure my learning and do my homework (review my games) before asking for help, but I’m ok if you help in any ways that works for you.
Thank you everyone who even read my posts and so much gratitude for my angels who help my journey in this fantastic game that I’m starting to love.
PS: Sorry if there is English mistakes, it’s not my primary language but I’m trying my best to me as clear as possible.
Your opening was good.
You keep the whole upper side, if you play h6 at move 22.
At move 34 you have a choice between two ataris. b8 captures the stone.
Your opponent had a way to capture your stones after move 35, can you find it?
Move 44 can be captured immediately.
At move 76 your opponent has a connected group on the upper side with plenty of eyespace. The only way to kill anything there would be to disconnect these stones, but thats not possible. Even if you have both d8 and d9, you cannot play c9 because then your stones are already in atari, so these stones are not doing anything.
I guess that if I played B8 instead of D9 at move 36, I would not have lost the upper group.
Thanks for the explanation for move 76+, I kind of recognized a pattern I saw in problems, but it was different enough (plenty of eyes) that I see now why it was bad to try to play there.
Huge thanks for taking the time to help me. Greatly appreciated.
I added a review to the game. Concepts you need to take a look at:
Self atari. This one should be easy to fix, you only need to consider the liberties of the stone you want to play.
Ko. Both you and your opponent ignored important ko fights.
Wasted moves. You played unnecessary moves inside your own territory, as well as your opponents, which is just throwing away points for no reason (giving them captures or filling your own moku).
Thank you so much for the review. So many clear elements that I can understand and take into account in my next games. I’ll re-read it later. Thank you
It’s incredible how you learn from self-review followed by peer review.
