Hello everyone,
I was playing a rather chaotic game and today I resigned because I didn’t see how to win. But AI says I was winning… how? I don’t see how to make points anywhere but the bottom side and bottom left corner, plus I managed to kill one black group (I think). But everything else is pretty much in blacks favor. Was this a lost game or not?
I was white here:
As a side note, is this level of chaos normal in games? I haven’t been playing for long, but all my previous games were more readable than this.
I think that the square group is dead, but it could cause more trouble. X group will get connected to the top right unless I sacrifice half of the triangle group. And the other half won’t make any points, it may even die. And the few white stones surrounding X are weak.
Right, so many problems and white needs to make a sacrifice somewhere to settle the position, but that would only play into blacks score. Overall it is complicated situation, I have been looking over it since morning and keep finding more problems than solutions.
Sorry I don’t know how to count the points at this stage, I think black has control in 3/4 of the board and don’t see how to make more points without losing it elsewhere. The score estimation isn’t very helpful as it only counts the points that are almost certainly yours, which works well only in endgame.
Sure, but don’t resign when the situation is complicated but still unclear, especially at the level of about 23k where anything can still happen at this stage of the game.
Only when the situation has become clear and obviously terrible for you, you might want to consider resignation.
Cutting at the green point could save the triangle stones maybe. Not sure capturing white but getting a seki. It’s a bit complicated but I would start from here. Then the connection/disconnection on the upper right (between cross, triangle and circle) is another crucial point
Of course you can’t count precisely at this stage but if you assume that nothing dies except the black group you captured, then after counting very roughly, White looks comfortably ahead.
Did you believe that the position is lost for you?
Of course, otherwise I wouldn’t resign.
If so, why?
I was under the impression that:
I can’t make any more points and I will be on defence from now on
last thing I tried was to disconnect the group in the middle, but that failed too, unless I sacrifice the whole top right quadrant
right side belongs to black too
bottom right is weak, I would likely lose some more points there
One thing I realized too late was that an area with captured stones is twice as valuable because you get the points for area and for prisoner stones too.
My past games were not this complicated so I did better in those. I’ll need to play more games to feel more comfortable in this chaos.
Right side is at least as weak as your bottom. I think you are overestimating your opponent and underestimating yourself.
I would advise playing more games to scoring, even if the middle game is confusing, keep playing the best moves you can, and see how things settle. Yes you’re 23k, but so is your opponent
I’m more experienced in chess than go, but in my experience the most effective approach is: If I believe the position is lost, but I can’t actually see how the loss would play out, then I should play on until I become able to see it. That’s the rule of thumb I’d recommend you for future games.
In this game, given that you’ve made this post, you evidently hadn’t reached that point yet.
A bit more: I met many beginners who wants to understand what is happening but that’s almost… Impossible. The view and experience is so short and the way so long, they better should focus on how to put a foot in front of the other or they will feel too much pain. And keep patience. Anyway all you saw is already very deep and promising, maybe give yourself more the right to go experimenting.
