Hi! In this game I was completely destroyed by my 6k opponent even though it was a handicapped game. That was very impressive to me. I see some little mistakes, such as not responding to the peep of move 13. However, I seem to have a lot of room for improvement. Where is it? Where are my blind spots? Was trying to kill the group that grew from g5 to ambitios? I was impressed by the move c7. I did not know how to respond to the follow-up moves. I know that e5 was a mistake. Should have played c5 instead and live. I was under lots of time preasure.
What are generally good strategies against stronger opponents?
You mean this game, right?
It was a blitz game and a high handicap game. You didn’t exactly play super-solidly and try to win by a small margin (not that that’s a bad thing), but this means you entertained complications with fighting, and with tighter time controls, the more advanced player handles these with better instinct and tends to gain a comparative advantage.
The reason why your groups die is basically that you blunder them. Yes, there were other ways to handle the fighting better, but your general choices weren’t enough to kill you, except for a few critical moments.
I’ve added a little commentary in the game to point out some moves that were clear blunders or that I thought you might otherwise be able to see as misplaced if given a moment’s reflection. I attribute these sorts of mistakes to the time control.
Now, if you would have honestly made these sorts of mistakes in a slow game, then you probably need to play slow games and/or review your games slowly in order to build the new ideas to the point where you can reach them given a modicum of time. If you can do this, then blitz starts to become a more proper environment for practicing these skills and getting to the right idea faster.
Sorry if this was a fast review, but time pressure seems to have been really important in this game and therefore the quality doesn’t necessarily represent your conceptual understanding. As for taking high handicap in general, I think you played fairly well despite the blunders but the basic idea is not just to attack weak groups, but also to maintain solid shape.
Again, White benefits from most complications, but Black really deserves to play assertively given all the influence in the opening. Insisting that something die is usually bound to strain your shape, so compared to even games you may want to practice softer forms of attacking and simply control where White runs so that the group can’t make much territory nor much affect your own.
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Thanks you so much for your help! As I figured, I probably need to do more tsumego. That will help me to read better. Also I haven’t played slow games for a while. Maybe I should do that again for a change, since playing quick games leads to sloppier play. Thank you for your effort. I really appreciate it! Keep up the good work!
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