Hello! Here’s a game in which I was just soundly defeated:
I felt like I was behind, though not quite enough to resign, for most of the game. My problems clearly resulted in part from bungling both of the black’s high two-space extensions in the corners. I wonder if anyone has advice for me or comments on the game. Thanks!
I think you lacked patience at the opening. Move 15 was the first mistake, this is a good example of position for which my fake proverb applies: “reverse-sente moves are bigger than they appear”. Instead you played N3, as if you wanted to defend K4, but K4 isn’t really weak since Black’s four stones E4 have no eyes and a stone on the fourth line can easily escape anyway.
Then comes the invasion (move 25), which caused you to lag behind. You don’t need to invade right now. Black has 10-15 points in the corner, that’s not small but not huge either, you can also build first before starting a fight. Your two stones R8 are not settled yet, and creating another weak group will weaken R8.
And indeed, at move 55, all your opponent’s groups are strong while you have 2-3 weak groups, your stone N3 is almost dead and your corner C3 can be surrounded in one move.
P.S. If at some point you want to do something in the corner when there is a big high shimari, you can consider to study josekis like these: https://online-go.com/joseki/29620
If you want to approach a corner, but you do not like the potential for pincers, you can try A:
This is a usual result:
And I see now that your opponent did try that move on you, with a nice result.
You had two groups that are either semi-weak or outright very weak, so creating a third one in the same area is rarely going to work. While the opponent chases you and you struggle to make life, your other groups will be getting weaker and weaker.
Most of your problems in the game stem from this decision. Later on the board looks like this:
A is sente, otherwise all those top stones could suddenly have no base and the other marked stones have no eyes yet.
Thank you both for the comments.
Move 27 at Q4 also looks particularly bad to me in retrospect. It was the only tactic I saw at the time to try to break out of the box there but I probably would have been better off playing somewhere else.
Were there any better moves locally? Is there a better way to strengthen K4 and maybe attack the corner? Or do you strongly prefer a big move elsewhere like K17?
This is a great diagnosis. I guess I didn’t want black to get the whole right side. But I made him quite strong on the right regardless so I suppose the stones would have been better spent building territory on the left and above.
Here is another idea. Playing the hane, helps Black get stronger. If you have the K4 and C10 you can just extend and make the opponent revert to the josekis of “approaching the 3-3, by playing 4-4”… now bow A and B are viable:
I haven’t looked into either of them a lot, but the opponent wouldn’t want to play this, for example:
The question is: how important is the stone K4? It has some value because it pincers a weak black group:
But Black can strengthen the four stones with the atari D6 while starting to surround your corner. That’s why White D6 was important. After that you could play like in the game
Or you could play like this
so you could aim at an invasion at A later. Of course Black could also invade at M3, so you would play M4, make influence and your stones would be reasonably safe.
If you insist on not playing D6, then your game move at N3 was OK. Or you could play at O3 for the same reason as above if you prefer.
I would play B and not A as White, because if White plays A then Black will atari from below at H2, and White has to play B anyway and make a bad shape (empty triangle).
this feels really big for black. black’s on the fourth line and ahead.
white still needs a move to fortify her wall.
Is this really a fair trade?
I made a review
I am not sure, to be honest. I am still trying that joseki out, with mixed results, I have to admit. 
Still, it might be better than getting pincered.
There are other alternatives, as well, like this:
I haven’t tried them yet, but I will.
Good point. I think that B is only good when you want to offer it as a sacrifice and run away in the center or something similar?
Perhaps you meant “A is only good…”? I can’t think of an example where a shape like that would be good, but what you say reminds me of sequences like this
where White plays 4 to move to the center and doesn’t mind sacrificing the triangled stone.
Thanks, this is really helpful! Lots of very concrete ideas I can use.
Yes the upper right/middle result and the dumpling were the only moments that felt like small local wins for me, haha.
It’s practically even, maybe white lost 0.3 points. But the time when white should really like to play like this is when black already has a stone around r9 like in the Chinese opening and then it’s overconcentrated so good for white, but then of course black can resist and not peacefully play that last extend but hane.
