I need help, I find myself losing to this a lot. I wouldn’t mind a review on this entire game but what I most specifically need help with is how to invade the moyo that starts forming between moves 42-50, and when I should do it?
I also kind of believe I might have helped my very gracious opponent to make his moyo. How do I avoid that? My idea was to make myself strong on the outside so I have places to run back to once I did invade but he did a good job of both preventing that while also making it bigger.
Caution: This is a DDK game and I most likely made some really terrible choices/moves. Be merciful! Constructive criticism very welcome, though!
This looks like a well balanced game. You just need to work on your technique, you missed two opportunities to erase some of white’s center territory (see the quick review I posted).
Thanks everyone for the options posted so far - I learned a lot (I guess the OP did too!)
I have one question: the options showed how to avoid the moyo forming in the first place, quite early on, and how to wedge into it after it is there.
The one thing that didn’t raise comment was the 3-3 invasion. HowToPlay? offered G10 as a moyo stopper after the invasion. Would it have been even more timely before the invasion?
IE is it better to prevent this moyo before or after “removing the invasion aji”? I find I face this question quite often…
A thought on the moyo invasion: you didn’t need to invade it at all!
You lost the game by 24 points, which is less than what you lost by letting white invade your moyo. On move 69, you’ve almost cut white’s invading group off. It has zero eyes, and, as of that point in the game, is probably worth ~30 points. If you’d killed it instead of invading, you probably would’ve secured a ton of territory on the top and on the right. Consider that you’ve got about 60 points on the top, and about the same on the right, by my very rough count. White, meanwhile, has 70 ish points on the left and about 20 on the bottom. You could play to cap white’s moyo and kill the invading stones, instead of trying to invade, and still win the game. This is basically what turned the game, and you had a bunch of opportunities to play it. A big, fighting invasion is fun, but cutting off weak groups and expanding moyo is more likely to win you the game.
Most of your opportunities to get points are less of invasions than reductions. Look for where you can grow your moyo while pushing on your opponent, instead of playing defensive moves or looking for where you can jump into the middle of your opponent’s territory and live.
Awesome reviews guys, thanks so much! I learned a lot and thank you for pointing out my good moves. I find after I have someone look at my games and they only point out the terrible DDK moves I tend to change my whole flow and get killed for awhile.
A lot of those moves I didn’t even think of reading and I let my stones get cut off because of it. I’ll try to get better at the invasions and when I need to at all. Really, it’s hard for me to count as early with such loose territories.by move 70. I’ll try and expand my point estimation too.
Frankly I don’t see the need to outright invade moyo. I would just reduce it lighthly from the top right after than san san invasion sequence. Move 41 seems slow to me. I would play something like G10 or G9. even if white gets all the left side points score is more or lessabout the same and black is sketching out some center influence while white doesn’t really have potential anywhere else. Moves 41 and 43 don’t sit well with me. There are strong groups around and if white comes in dirrectly you can just attack and make points while chasing.
Invading moyos when reducing will do the job is often a mistake. Moyo owner gets to attack in force and make profit. That is kinnda what moyos are for.
Right, I did realize that they weren’t the greatest moves before I posted. Like I said, i had the idea to remove the aji so I could invade more safely as I didn’t know at the time that I didn’t need to. I still need to learn how to count loose territory better so I know how and when to push into moyos ot make bigger territory. It was a great learning game for me either way. Again, thanks for all the replies/suggestions.