There were quite a lot of local fights, and I feel I didn’t really do that well in most of them. For some of them I’ve put in other variations that might have worked better, but I don’t really know.
I also messed up on a larger scale and allowed white to get quite a big area in the lower right which I had to invade, but didn’t do the invasion well and ended up well behind. One specific question I’d like opinions on is how I should have handled this area. Should I have done something earlier (if so when and how?) or should I just have handled my invasion better? Or would it still have been fine if I played the subsequent attack in the centre better?
I only came back into the game when my opponent failed to notice the upper right could be made into a ko, and then apparently misread my ko threat and lost their lower left group. The sequences in both the upper right and lower left seem complicated and I’m still not certain that my reading of those positions is right. I also think that white would have won the ko fight if they had just answered my threat, but again am unsure.
In many ways reviews from people near my own level are useful for different reasons than reviews from players much stronger than me. Your analysis is closer to the level I should be able to achieve than a 5d’s analysis would be. Both are useful and I’ll take reviews from anyone who is willing to do one.
I started a review before you made a comment denigrating 5d analyses. (Sorry friend! Could have done other things!) Please let me know if it is not approachable. I mainly talked about cutting and connecting, which might be your weak point. Toshiro Kageyama has a chapter on this subject in his book “Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go” that might interest you. There’s a digital copy floating around online, but a paper copy feels nicer in your hands.
I didn’t mean to denigrate 5d analysis (or indeed 6d), sorry! I just wanted to say I value 5k analysis as well, but probably for different reasons.
Your review was very useful. Yes, I see now how I allowed myself to get cut and allowed white to connect more than I should have done. In particular the shape you refer to as the flower shape does seem to have been a repeated problem. I’ve also been looking for good recommendations for books to read, so I’ll definitely look up that one. Thanks!