My latest reading 'success'

Recenty in a game on a real board there was a situation where I really wanted to tenuki, but a large group was at stake, so I had to read if it could be captured. And indeed, after reading 5 stones deep I saw a semeai coming and counted 5 liberties on both sides with the opponent to move next. So better no tenuki now. I played a defending move and made a picture with my phone from that part of the board.

After the game we re-created the situation and it turned out that the sequence I read was indeed the most relevant line and after having the stones on the board I again counted 5 liberties for each side.

Boy was I proud. Granted, 5 moves isn’t that deep, but it wasn’t just 5 moves, it was 5 moves until the start of a semeai. Great achivement for a mere mortal kyu who doesn’t count reading to his strengths.

At this point my opponent/friend gently pointed out to me that his stones in fact had only 4 liberties and I consequently I could have tenukied.

So it’s seems my go reading skills have improved that much, that I can mis-count liberties equally well with or without the stones laid out on the board.

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Did you keep the picture by any chance?

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Sorry, no, deleted already.

If we think too much on how weak is our reading then we will all stop playing. So discovering pleasure in this and a challenge too is always a great experience.

Here’s a nice endgame puzzle from a recent game of mine. I smelled something in the right area, but didn’t find the right move. (I was ahead enough to win anyway though.)

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Summary

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Indeed. I played 1 at 3. Decent intuition, reading needs improvement. Working on it! :construction_worker_man:

I recently read a similar kind of thing in the same way , and decided to play instead of tenuki anyhow: better safe than sorry :smiley:

That’s same as the example given in attack and defense, that great old book.