hi everybody,
I need your help,
I think there’s a problem in all my games.
as you see here, I don’t know how to stop an inveding group from making 2 eyes and living. I have been playing more than 350 games and I still have problem with this.
do you know any guides that can help me?
I mean, what’s a general guide to not let enemy group to make a living?
Nothing you don’t know.
Reduce his space, and avoid that he makes 2 eyes.
Be careful with cuts and connections.
Try to read a little bit (the most difficult I know)
thanks
I feel like I’m not progressing
That’s a very common feeling between beginners, go is really hard especially when starting. Play many games until you’ll start to grasp a bit more.
There are proverbs that are dealing with this kind of questions. But stay alert, they fail quite often. I only use them to get the first move to think about and not to replace the process of thinking altogether. With this introduction:
“Do not attach to weak stones” If you want to restrict your opponent’s moves it is unwise to be reactive. You want to be in the driver seat. If you attach to a stone and your opponent counters strongly you are likely to play again locally. This sets your opponent in the driver seat in an area that should be yours.
“Cut and Connect” A Cut is a strong move because it separates your opponent’s groups. In consequence, they must handle them separately, which can be a surprising headache. Conversely, you should look out for cuts in your own position when trying to surround an opponent’s group. That does not mean that you should connect every group immediately, only that you should have a plan if your opponent cuts you.
“Stay positive and have fun” Even knowing 1 and 2 for many years I still fail to apply them regularly. That is just the (almost) eternal learning process of Go. We all go through this. You are not dumb or untalented because you struggle with this at the moment 
Acknowledge your mistakes, try to learn from them and fail next time more creatively. In general, I also found this quite good live advice. Only seldom, we succeed forever, more often we only learn to avoid hundred ways that do not work.
Killing invading stones is generally difficult. To improve, the best is to practice life and death problems.
In this diagram you can see that:
answering at 2 instead of 1 was a natural connection but unnecessary because after you play 1 white cannot cut at 2 so 1 here is protecting against the white cut at 2 as the diagram shows. If white persists, he finishes captured.
There are a few things failing in your beginners view I may underline which you need to see like
At the top the triangle white shape is called empty triangle, it’s a bad heavy shape because it has 7 liberties instead of the 8 that 3 stones could have.
In the lower right, many beginners don’t visualize that white is in atari, he has only one liberty. Or in a fight going to this shape, they won’t anticipate it.
What I want to point is that you need to get a good view, more as you need theories yet
That’s true, especially very easy problems. But that’s not always fitting what a beginner is waiting from the game (on the fun part)
Well, it sounds like they’re not having fun right now constantly being invaded and losing territory… so the relevant training that helps them kill invasions may become fun, even if they are a beginner.
Also, some people just like puzzles. Sudoku is totally a thing, and not that different in practice to solving tsumego.
I said “not always”. I didn’t say no one.
Now imho it’s bit inducing a wrong idea that you will learn to kill the invaders with solving problems as there is much more in the balance to consider.
For example here
Solving life and death would help in this position in a very indirect and far way to manage this invasion, mostly by training reading as anything else.
So it’s just a little bit relevant to bring a solution to OP concern on invasions. Not that much.
Bit similar situation with chess, I am a very uncultured chess player with a few dozens of games. If you pushed me to study finals I would have dropped even quicker as I don’t see it as the most fun, but yes sure some may like it from the very beginning.
White invasion is interesting, as you have a bit overextended your boundaries. Your last move left an annoying cutting point.
By playing solidly like this, it would be easier to keep your territory. And to win as you have already more as white.
I watched another game you lost but that was because you went a bit crazy in endgame instead of cashing your lead. Imho could be right time for you to switch to 19x19?
This is a very important part I think. Because I had the exact same struggles as you do (and still have sometimes) and I fixed it mostly by thinking much more about if it is worth to create another cutting point, or if staying connected is just better in the end.
I just wanted to point that out one more time, because I feel like this really may be the thingy.^^
Hi sakta,
as you were looking for general advice, i ll try to provide some.
Just defending will not always be correct. There might be a better, more decisive move that outright captures your opponents group. finding theses moves is a matter of reading. Try to read accurately and play safe if you cant. Staying strong will often leave you with an acceptable result anyway. (See variation in your game-chat.)
kickaha
thanks, it helps more than what you think
oh thank you soo much!
I had this problem too until I read the book Shape Up!
I’m not saying that you should read that book, there are also other good resources on “good shapes”. For example:
A good shape is a pattern of stones that are considered good in go. A good shape is also often the basis for an eye. So if you see where the opponent needs to play to make a good shape, then you place your stones there, to prevent the opponent making eyes.
This way you can consistently block them from making eyes. Sometimes you can beat them without any contact fighting.
Learning what good shapes look like is very useful and it’s not too difficult to get started.
Good luck, have fun!
check out Go Magic, especially …
and especially especially their magnificent and FREE Skill Tree:
More:
Charles Matthews’ famous book “Shape Up!” that @JohnnieDarko mentioned above:
Dsaun’s legendary “Shape” lecture:
