Hello, I’m a beginner trying to figure out my biggest weaknesses. In particular, I’ve recently been working on how to deal with late-game invasions. This time I succeeded in keeping black from making two eyes in the top group (I finally learned to not attach right away, my mistake in previous games) but did I make any major blunders that could have let black live?
Any other recurrent mistakes you can spot would be very helpful as well!
As an unrelated side note, how do you think of early ranks on OGS? Where I first learned, 30kyu was considered more ‘someone who was just taught the basic rules of the game’, but here, even players ranked 31kyu+ seem to be better than someone who has only just learned the basic rules.
You clearly know a lot and are well beyond basic rules. Try not to sweat the rank too much and just keep playing, you’re on the right track.
On the top, M19 was the vital point for black to make two eyes, so it would have behooved (behove?) either player to play there before the outside wall was closed.
Earlier on when you’re responding the invasion it’s good to visualize where eyes might be created and foreclose that possibility. As you say it’s better to do so obliquely rather than contact your opponent’s stones directly, since contact often creates a local fight that can result in him or her creating eye space. Along those lines maybe M17 would have worked better at move 132.
In general the fourth line projects influence toward the center, while the third line is good for securing territory. I think your play elsewhere in the game demonstrates that you understand this but it’s a good rule of thumb to keep in mind when you’re evaluating whether an area is open to invasion.
C18 at move 190 is an endgame mistake that lost you the game. Those two stones at B18 & B19 were not in danger at that moment in time, so you had to better use this move at R19 to deny Black some end game points.
Playing Q19 in the end game neither wins you points, nor denies your opponent points. You had to use this move to play C1 instead to improve your score, but even then you are already behind by 0.5 point. Playing K11 was also unnecessary and loses you a point.
As a side advice: Obviously the “invasion” of Q11 can’t work because you are in a tight space and completely surrounded by Black stones. Nevertheless, when you pick up a spot for invasion, look out for a combination of empty space and closeness to corner/edge. In this situation, there was more empty space at R7 to make your miracle.
A full beginner, which you aren’t, shall start maybe around 60k. But here, as many other go servers, displayed ranking starts around 25k. So it’s true that a 25k here can be of quite various strength. Now most will advise you to not care on rankings as beginner, wait to be approaching SDK (9k or better) levels for that.
You may look at this thread among others for some debates on beginners rankings on OGS. Note that we went through quite some updates through the years so be careful when consulting older threads on this subject!