Quick review for this 19x19 game? 11k vs

What could I have done better?

This is kind of tricky… But I quickly looked through to give you my ideas

In general, you are too concered with making a local area indestructible, while your opponent assures influence on the rest of the board. It is a classic mistake of less experienced players found in every book about go.
If you watch first 50 moves you can see that you have a clearly defined strong (but small) group, while white has his stones all over the rest of the board (we call it moyo or influence) and he then turnes this influence into his (much larger territory).
However, seeing that you are playing against a stronger opponent this could actually be a good idea since otherwise you could have ended up with nothing… :smiley: In general though it is bad.

Then you attack his corners which seems an OK strategy to me, since those were weak and you needed points. I would have probably attack differently and you should be able to make some points there (and good job on making some in the upper right), but seeing as your opponent is much more versed in local fights, the succes is small. If you really wanted to you can look through some corner joseki here http://senseis.xmp.net/?44Joseki (but I don’t actually think you should bother with those much just yet)

Some smaller points just to help you understand:
move 157 - capturing those two stones is completely meaningless and in fact only serves to lower your territory. You see that group is completely fine as it is and white cannot endanger it in any way. Take a look at it and you will see that there is no way how white could capture it. Therefore those two stones would end up as your captives anyway and you just put one stone in your territory ergo -1 point and a wasted move

Move 41 just for example. This move is useless to you. It gives you nothing. You cannot hope to attack the stone you are connecting to since he has “friends” everywhere, you gain no territory and you cant even reduce white territory. It is like hitting a wall. You only helped white to strenghten his border. I just bring this up as an example to show that you should think about each move and what is it supposed to accomplish. There is so much space on the left where you could crawl into whites territory.

Move 49 is again wasted. If you look closely or try it yourself as white you will see that there is no point in attacking there, and therefore no reason to defend. In go every move counts (very much!) each move must bring you something, otherwise you will quickly be behind.

And I promise this is the last time I bring it up but I still think you should start playing on a smaller board. Maybe you want to play the “real” go or something like that and that is why you play 19x19 but such a large board is very hard to control and you play localy anyway. Try 13x13, on it, you still have to think strategicaly and complexely, not just localy, but you could learn faster as the borders and local fights tend to be more clear, you can play more games and you and your opponent can completely focus the whole game. And then you could play a good 19x19 much sooner.

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Hi! Here are just some general tips that I found helpful as a 25k.

First, read through: http://playgo.to/iwtg/en/ - It takes about a half hour, but it’s a great introduction to some of the major concepts of 19x19 strategy. I felt lost playing on the full size board until I completed it, and after I was able to improve pretty quickly.

Second, I would recommend mainly playing against people of a similar rank for now (20k and above). An 11k (like your opponent, and me actually :stuck_out_tongue: ) is by no means an expert at the game, but we’ve played enough to understand a lot of basic techniques and have branched into some more advanced ideas. Playing others of a similar rank will help you recognize common patterns, and you’ll win more often which is encouraging. (That said, teaching games with stronger players can be helpful every once in awhile - PM me if you want one)

Finally, I would recommend playing at least five 9x9 games for every 19x19. Smaller boards are great at improving fighting skills and building an understanding of shape, which is the quickest way to improve early on. However, the occasional 19x19 keeps you aware of larger board strategies.

I hope this is helpful! Nice job in the game, especially in the upper right. White made some mistakes, and you were able to capitalize on it, so congrats :thumbsup:

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I thank you both very much for this advice. I also spent some good time playing with that interactive learning site. Good stuff.

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