So, I’ve steadily seen my go game getting better and better and I’ve steadily climbed the DDK ranks to roughly 15 kyu! While I am very happy with my progress, there still are (of course) many things I consider I am lacking:
Fighting abilities - I’m not very good at fighting, and I often feel a bit overwhelmed by it. I’ve been handling extremely aggressive opponents much better these days, but usually it’s by being better at them at general board positioning. That said, I still feel my fighting being subpar.
Joseki - I still feel I don’t have a grasp of some important joseki sequences, maybe even basic ones (apart from most 3-3 invasions, which I’ve gotten the feel of, more or less).
Tsumego & making life - I am doing tsumegos pretty often (almost daily), but I still don’t feel I’ve been making lots of progress in reading life/death problems, I’m still struggling with some problems that are considered basic; I’m not sure where I’m going wrong here.
Despite being pretty mindful about my shortcomings, I would really appreciate any further feedback on what I should be watching and working on.
I wonder though, what were you thinking when making some of the moves. Do you remember anything in particular? Did any of the moves stand out to you, in a way that you wanted something to happen but then something else happened?
Somewhere around move 132 where I honest to god can’t figure what exactly happened and the opponent not only reached the wall, but was able to finally make a second eye. Did I do something wrong in terms of not letting them reaching the wall, was there a mishandling after reaching the wall, or there was nothing I really could do to stop that from happening?
After move 191, I can’t understand what I should have done better to win the capture race. Am I missing something obvious, a general strategy/theory, is it both? The only thing I can think of is playing Q5 instead of R9 at move 201, but other than that I’m in the dark.
If there are any other moves that bug you/make you wonder feel free to ask, I’ll be extremely happy to discuss them. Thank you!
(21) left a cut when you could’ve connected solidly at E18.
(27) wasn’t sente against the corner, so White was able to play away. All you did was save a couple of points and actually made the cut more worrisome by adding more stones to this potentially detached part of the group.
(29) would usually be at D4. I can’t be looking for diagrams with this device, so all I’ll do is recommend researching the move in OJE (OGS Joseki Explorer, the thing in the Joseki part of the navbar). You don’t have to play that move, ofc. In that position approaching the lower right was quite big, for instance.
Your life and death on the top side had issues, but White failed to punish.
After investing stones on (57) and (59), the D7 cut became more of a bother. It wouldn’t be bad to fix there immediately.
As bugcat said connecting solidly without leaving cuts looks better. This shape is just weird.
Once you see white is alive, you should leave it alone, maybe there will be ko somewhere and it’ll be a ko threat. And of course, connecting at E19 gives up sente for no reason.
Since you played those two stones it makes sense to connect and not let white cut.
Speaking in terms of big brush strokes, I feel like you have a difficult time zooming out from the nitty gritty of TACTICS to see how your local exchanges work in the broader scheme of STRATEGY. So yeah, it’s not just a factor of becoming better at individual contact-fight exchanges - it’s about being able to strategically pick your battles so that you’re making the most efficient decisions for each stage of the game.
I feel like reading through these 3 articles could help you see a different way of approaching the game:
This l17 attachment was not good. Remember that go is a surrounding game - generally you want to avoid getting your stones enclosed like this. Even though black may be able to rescue the stone, by attacking it white can gain stones facing the outside, which are more valuable.
If you really want to attack whites eye-shape, then one space above - l18 - may be a good inside placement. But at this time there are more important moves on the board.
Instead I would suggest to proceed playing in the “pushing battle” either by extending with A or, if you are ok with a cutting point, B. Black can build a nice area in the upper-right.
In the game you played A, which temporarily threatens to capture, but actually helps white cleanly cut through blacks left- and right-side positions.
How about extending with 1? I assume you didn’t like that white can capture your cutting stone with B. But in this case you can counter-atari with A, white captures with C, and then wrap around with D. It is a common tesuji sequence in this shape. As a result black gains nice influence towards the center and stays connected (for the most part).
In the game you saved one of your stones with A, but connecting your stones on the bottom with 1 is much more important / bigger for points. This way black destroys a lot of potential territory for white and can look forward to playing at B, if white does not defend against it.
Instead of enclosing white with A here, you should first defend your stones with 1. Note that white can’t cut at B immediately, but once the white group gains some liberties, black should fix that cut. The white group is still unsettled and vulnerable to attack. “Make a fist before throwing a punch.”
Nevermind, I forgot that blacks four stones around J4 are captured In that case F8 was a good choice, sacrificing the five black stones but preserving the potential territory in the center.
That attack on whites group on the upper side was a nice attempt to turn the game around (regardless of whether it is objectively supposed to live or not). At that point it feels like black has to capture to catch up, so I like the decision of going “all in” on the kill.
Thank you so much for your thoughts! Some comments/thoughts/counterpoints:
I agree that this is a weird move, I kind of knew that but for some reason it seemed better at the time to also move further along the wall.
Yes. I was too focused on the point and didn’t realise that stone was of little importance.
This is one of the reasons I was talking about fighting etc. I still am behind in learning joseki, this was a move that was at the same time an extension from the upper left, a way to establish a base and begin an enclosure of the left side.
Regardless, D4 sounds really suicidal, how would it help me? I feel like a simple hane at D5 and I would be toast.
Also, I find OJE infuriatingly not helpful, I really haven’t found any use of it at all. Apart from being incredibly cryptic for my understanding, when things come to the point of “why this position and not that?” it’s usually out of entries and explanations. I very much prefer to read a book, watch a video or at least an entry on sensei’s library.
As I said, I haven’t seen much progress on my work with Tsumego. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, if there is such a thing.
I guess I got anxious that my window for making any invasion was closing, and that I wouldn’t be able to reduce (at which I failed, anyway but that’s another story); so fixing the cut felt a small move, considering that I didn’t see any immediate danger of it being left open. But that’s what you get for leaving cuts behind, I guess
Thank you so much for your thoughts! Some comments/thoughts/counterpoints:
I agree that this is a weird move, I kind of knew that but for some reason it seemed better at the time to also move further along the wall.
Ah, the key phrase here being “Once you see”. I hadn’t.
And yes, 'tis true that E19 was DDK-vision.
Didn’t seem like an immediate threat and I felt that the time for invasion/reduction was “now or never”. But it’s painfully true that such basics will come back and bite you!
Huh, OK. Will read, thank you!
There were so many points I felt that needed shutting down to avert eyes, that I tried to prioritise what I saw as the highest in potential. How could that move help me, except for basically closing me in when white played M14 and in effect turning the hunted to the hunter? The whole point was to keep white in gote and in defence, that would essentially make me run to safety, fuelling further possible attacks in-between from white.
I saw T17 as a much better move a bit later unfortunately. On first glance, it felt like a bit of a suicide, should white extend at Q17 etc. and gain more liberties by crawling.
Point taken, though as I can see it’s a losing race in any case, right? I thought about doing the atari, but connecting seemed more solid
Sorry, I shouldn’t have suggested D4. That’s SDK-level theory.
Regret to hear OJE doesn’t work well for you. Josekipedia contains a lot more refutation lines, which means more options in the interface. Josekipedia is “broad” where OJE is “sleek” – the two approaches suit different people better.
Thank you! That’s the kind of feedback I am looking for the most, I think. I will definitely read up on the links. Thank you for your time!
@martin3141
Thank you for the thoughtful feedback and especially for the positive comments. It is another hugely important part of critique and it does help me know what I should continue doing better! Finally, your kind and mindful language is much appreciated. <3
(also, really nice trick with the “hide details” function)
Some comments/thoughts/counterpoints:
Move 45
Yeah, I realised that pretty quickly - a bad read, really. I didn’t want white to form a wall, especially that early in the game and that is exactly why I didn’t continue with the pushing battle. I wanted to build with an invasion at the lower wall, and then be able to attack upwards to the white group. For that i had to a) immediately stop them from making eyes there and b) not continue any kind of crawl, until I felt I could encircle it.
Move 54
Yeah, I saw that shortly after playing the move, it was only by luck that white didn’t see the snapback. Definitely will try to be more mindful with that kind of thing.
Move 69
That was certainly a bad misplay, a pity really! Plus it very much goes to click with the plan I mentioned above. A matter of reading and getting better at fights!
Move 81
I don’t remember this point, but I think it 99% again boils down to me preferring to get influence so that I can hopefully contain, if not outright kill, the group above. While your version does sound great, a) I’m not at all sure about my abilities to make that group live and b) it gives white an amazing way to connect with the upper group, which even in hindsight I feel would be worse for me. It felt like all or nothing for me at that point; maybe not an adequate read of the game as a whole, but I quickly saw all my territory squashed and that feels too little to help. Plus, claustrophobic!
Move 93
Thank you! Glad to hear that. I (still) think the game was lost around midpoint, after white’s invasion on top. So really, I would choose the same thing again in hindsight.
tonybe is, I think, very good at understanding what the student is really asking for, whereas I tend to try to simply answer the questions that have been posed – were there mistakes, why were they mistakes, what were the proper moves… I should take the time to reread The Meta-Topic: How to Review.
Both are VERY helpful and I’m immensely thankful to you and everyone here giving their time. It is more a matter of what I personally feel benefits me a bit more (because both do), and not an objective prioritisation by any means!
In that case F8 was a good choice, sacrificing the five black stones but preserving the potential territory in the center.
