Lofty goals hurt us when we don’t achieve them. My only goals related to Go are to play consistently and to try new ideas. This has led to slow and enjoyable improvement over some time.

Something I am aiming at right now is to play for territory more often than I like. I came down the kyu ranks playing handicap games. As a result, I love giant, thick walls of stones. When I am pincered after approaching a star point, jumping into the corner and taking profit feels terrible to me. Because of this, I try to jump into the corner as much as possible. I believe that I have a weakness when it comes to dealing with my opponent’s large moyos.

All comments are always appreciated. If anyone would like to play a game sometime, let me know.

I don't have many thoughts on this game. I was a bit lost on on what to do with so I tried an invasion on the lower side. I don't like being attacked so I usually settle for reductions. I didn't like my connection at and wished I had descended to c2 instead. The game had an interesting or uninteresting end, depending on how you look at it. Maybe "uncommon" is the word I am looking for.

Your invasion looks reasonable.
Connecting at looks correct to me.

There were several problems in the upper right corner:

Normally W starts with R17, to probe B intentions.
After , B could kill quickly with T17.
After , B could extend to N15 and still kill (or good ko).
B should at least see the net if not the ladder.

Mistun, thank you for your comments. I was very fortunate in that corner and didn't deserve the result. I also missed the net. I should have played it even with a working ladder.

I have not reviewed this game myself yet. Allergies have turned my eyes into sand. Everything felt random and I have never seen any of the patterns in the game before so prepare yourself for suboptimal play all around!

In this game you were the better fighter but you launched fights when you were ahead and this was not necessary. A better fighter would take advantage of the opportunity to fight himself back into the game.

Full review:

Thank you Knotwilg for the detailed review! I always like to think of myself as the kind of person who wouldn't start a fight that wasn't beneficial, but your comments in this game show that we are not always the best at judging ourselves. On Wednesday's I play a lot of handicap go. Perhaps I can blame the mindset during this game as Wednesday night residue? Your recommendation of is something I wouldn't have considered. This is somewhat of a blind spot for me. Your suggestions for and are gorgeous. I am now wondering about my own thought process when I played my . Something along the lines of "WE FIGHT NOW!" but it looks comical after you point it out. Some of my center fighting decisions were based on a misreading. I thought I was capturing some stones instead of just "making it interesting." I think I could have avoided the ko in the upper right by playing :b113: at R18, as long as my upper right group wouldn't get into trouble. I really appreciate the review. I replay a game several times in the days following the game and it really helps having such thoughtful comments to go with it.

This is a game with my good buddy Cacafogo. We usually play without time constraints and try out new and bad moves on each other. We usually discuss the game for about as long as the game took. In this game I felt like I got ahead in the beginning and played slack moves the rest of the game. We like to play out dream sequences a lot and often abort ideas after starting them. I believe I lost on move 138, although we both made lots of mistakes before that point. After that move is when I felt like I was going to lose. Any advice for either side is appreciated as he will be reading your guys' comments as well.

I'm curious about alternatives to move because it felt terrible to make that move.

Hi,

Here's a full review. Key points are

22 - leading to an unfavorable opening
39 - bad crosscut, which somewhat restores the balance
66 - which we both see as the first losing move (I made this comment already in my offline analysis when you added your reply here)
87 - a soft move by Black which allows you to reduce the gap and get chances in the endgame
132 - the second losing move; the edges are important in the endgame, but one shouldn't allow the opponent to form new territories at that stage
138 - the final losing move; the loss is increased to over 5 points
174 - closing comments

Overall, both played a fairly patient game and sometimes too soft at that. Black grabbed his chance to trick White at 131, earning him a well deserved victory, but still White had his chances too. Not a bad game at all.

Thanks again Knotwilg! Because of the lack of time limit on our games, we like to work on positional judgement. We aren't great at it, but we try to estimate the score a lot, which helps explain some overly slack moves. We both hate dealing with moyos and want to learn more about reduction moves, such as when to make a reduction move and when to passively respond to a reduction move. Your review contains many ideas that we didn't think of even in our after game discussion. I truly appreciate it.

File.

I commented my thoughts during the game in the file. I have terrible playing habits. I frequently play moves that don't work that I believe my opponent will fall for. They often do, but when I play this way against a stronger player I fall apart. I want to try to play moves that I understand will work. I always blame handicap games for this bad habit. I probably need to change the way I play handicap games as well.

File

My goal in this game is to play solid moves that I can understand. I want to play territorially to see if I can learn more about dealing with opponent moyos. I have noticed a bad habit in my games where I play strong looking moves but have not read out any continuations. They usually rely on my opponent making a mistake and I think I avoid these types of dishonest move in this game. I have commented my thoughts in the game and would appreciate any correction of bad thinking that I have.

Comments are appreciated. Anything that rubs you the wrong way for either side.

20: until you stop playing obvious mistakes as such you will never become 6dan.
26: why not take other stone in sente? that is called pillar stone.
two moves hurt my eyes so much i stopped ..

_________________
"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

That is two tips more than anyone else. I appreciate the feedback Magicwand! I don't believe I will ever come anywhere close to to 6d. I became content with the game around 6k and any progress made past that point is just a byproduct of enjoying playing and thinking about go.

So here's a tsumego problem for you: what can white do locally?

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . O . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . O O . . . . . .
$$ | . X O O . . . . .
$$ | X . X O O . . . .
$$ | . . X X O . O . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ ------------------[/go]

A ko? I thought I was going to get a ko in the game with my descent, but my reading was not good enough. I didn't consider his correct response.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . O . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | 3 O O . . . . . .
$$ | 4 X O O . . . . .
$$ | X . X O O . . . .
$$ | 5 2 X X O . O . .
$$ | . 1 . . . . . . .
$$ ------------------[/go]