I played a game where my opponent played a funky (in my opinion) and it destabilized me. I didn’t know how to responded to it and he/she took the advantage pretty rapidly.
How could I have responded in a more correct way? Or even play moves that “punish” that kind of opening, because to me it seems counter-intuitive and something we would never see amonsgt pros (correct me on that if I’m wrong)
that kind of thing, where a player approaches each of his opponent’s starting moves rather than claiming corners himself, isn’t “good” play, in that, as you said, pros don’t use it much. It is, however, a very aggressive style that high amateur dans occasionally play just to test their fighting ability and experiment.
As to how to punish it, well, just play normally and the board will generally come out about even, if not slightly in favor of the more orthodox player. From the looks of the game you let yourself get intimidated by it, which is part of the reason it’s played in the first place. Kinda like the great wall tesuji.
The opening was aggressive but I wouldn’t say it was bad or worthy of “punishment.” The opening part of the game is a lot less important than most players realize. The middle game mistakes were more consequential, and I tried to comment on those. Enjoy it!!
That wasn’t even funky on any account. Just a simple approach-before-securing-corner kind of opening. Not too common, but not rare by a long shot. There’s nothing to punish because it’s not wrong.
You have 2 choices.
1: Just respond to every corner he approaches and eventually he will take that 2nd corner he neglected and the game reverts to a normal 1.
2: Take that corner B neglected, giving him a double approach to whatever corner he approached.
See? Nothing tricky about it and you can get back to orthodox play just by being obedient and answering everything locally.
However, I would say that some comments are questionnable in the way they are formulated. I started playing Go 3 months ago, and I’m playing on 19x19 since 2 months. I can’t know every possible shape/pattern yet. That is why I posted this topic in the first place. No need to say that I won’t reach SDK if I don’t know this or that or look disappointed when I made a big mistake.
This is a game and I play it for fun. Let’s keep the reviews as fun as the game please.
Thanks for the feedback. I agree I was a bit harsh in this review, and on closer inspection it was probably too much. I’ll keep the next ones more lighthearted.
PS: I hope I didn’t imply you were wrong not to know a pattern. I meant to say it’s one of those “essential” patterns most everyone will know at the SDK level. So it’s worth knowing if you aspire to that level.
I’m happy that we could resolve this in a positive manner.
I understood what you meant by essential patterns. You pointed out very useful patterns and I thank you for that! I’ll certainly try to apply them next time!