Intermezzo: Lucky Ladder

Will post the other two Boston games soon, but wanted to share my lucky game of the day.
It started 'boring' although I don't see that one space high pincer much.

 

I am black. I expected him to jump from his hoshi stone, but he tenuki'ed.
Since he didn't play at A, I decided to play there and see what happened.

 

I expected his next move.

 

But then he surprised me again, and I made many mistakes answering his moves.

 

Anyway, the game went on, and eventually we came to this position. It is black turn, so I knew that I could live with one of my groups at least.

 

Those two stones were going to be my second eye.

 

He replied at A. I immediately recognized the present he gave me and realized I just got super lucky.

 

He resigned... Yes, I realize it was just luck, but I still enjoyed it ^^
Here is the game.

 

Four Handi but STILL Lost!

Sigh, four handicap stones and I STILL lost...
Here is the game with review by sendol.

Here is my first mistake. White played A, and I played a simple one point jump instead of being more aggressive.

 

This would have been a much better way to play. Not only do I make white painful, but I made a base for black.

 

Go is so easy in hindsight!!!

 

Boston Game 1

Here is game 1, reviewed by my teacher sendol.

First interesting move was when he atari-ed on the inside instead of on the outside during this joseki. I had seen it before, but it doesn't seem as common as the outside one. Luckily I remembered not to just connect, but to atari right back at him first.

 

At the end I made a mistake when I didn't play A first and then B, but instead played B directly and omitted A. Oh well, next time I'll remember!

 

MGA Tourney!

On Sunday I actually went to a real life go tourney again! Happiness is mine.

I won two and I lost two, so that is perfect, right?

 

Game 1: against 1d, he tried to kill, but stumbled over his own sword, and suddenly I was alive and his killing stones were dead.

Game 2: against a 5d, with 4 handi stones. I lost one corner (oops, will have to review that joseki!) but things didn't go too badly till I decided to take points instead of fixing a cut. Yeah, she cut and and I cried and I resigned.

Game 3: against a 1d, which didn't go as well as I wanted, but somehow tricked him into suiciding. I was lucky.

Game 4: against a 2d. I captured a nice chunk of his stones, but forgot that maybe I shouldn't let him cut off a bunch of my stones. Oops. Oh well.

July Madness

I might not have been posting, but I have been busy playing. I really want to get back to ASR alpha and on the last day of June I was still stuck in gamma and not even ready to promote.

But I played and managed to promote to beta.

(ASR has four layers, with alpha being the highest and delta the lowest)

 

Since July 1st was a Sunday I actually could play quite a lot so I got as many ASR games in as I could. It is my experience that it is easier to get games early and late in the month. I didn't want to get stuck in desperate late month games again, so happy that I got all the early games in.

I played way more games than usual, let's see whether I can keep it up during the rest of July. Even if they aren't ASR games, I think actual playing beats boring study :D

Messy Opening

Two games today, not perfect, but not bad either. It is at least a start to get back into playing.
The second game had an interesting, but messy opening.

 

I was white in this game. Move 1 to 4 were unremarkable, but black 5 was unexpected. If he wanted to split up the left, I would have expected a third line move.

 

I decided that taking away his base from the direction of my komoku was best answer. I played white 6. Again he surprised me and played black 7. Hmmmm, I wasn't sure how to reply to that one.
Looking back I am not sure whether I like my game move, and think I would have preferred to reply at E12.

 

But in the game I played C15 and got this result.

 

Black 15 was not particularly sente, so I played white 16 to attack his lone stone.

 

We went on for a while, never ever playing on the right side of the board, and this was the end result on the left.Very regrettable death...

It feels good to be playing again. 

Back!

Yes, I know I have said that before... But this time I mean it!

 

My house finally is not on the market anymore, my divorce is OVER!, and my handicap stones kids are growing up and fighting less and less every day. Well, kind of. Yes, I am an optimist.

 I am still playing in ASR, although after a few months in alpha, I let life push me down to gamma. Which is fine, because it's fun to fight my way back up again.

Stay tunes for exciting games and interesting board positions. 

To Tenuki or Not To Tenuki

I am playing a lot of games at the moment (for me that is) which results in interesting questions. Here is one question which came up when I played a 5-3 point as my first move. I was white. Black immediately invaded.

 

Hmmmm... Now what??? I wasn't sure whether to tenuki or not. I was tempted to do so, but I didn't like the idea of him coming out. I'd rather have him live small in the corner while I got the outside. Although my outside would face his hoshi, so maybe my move already was the wrong direction anyway.

I did reply locally, and I think I still stand by that decision but not with a very high confidence. What would you have done in this situation?

Midnight Games

Note to self: midnight games can suffer from minor issues like missing a big atari. Oh well, I knew that midnight isn't my best playing time, but I hadn't played all day. That is a good excuse, no?

 

One of those 'If only I hadn't missed that atari I would have won!' games ^^

Maybe I should start sleeping at midnight :p

MGA Go Tournament

After many months, I finally made it to a go tournament again. It was a good experience. I went 2-2.

 

My first game was against a 2d, I took black, no komi. I felt that all my playing on wbaduk helped me to see any weaknesses in his shape and take advantage. Won that game.
Next game against a 1k. This one didn't go as well, and I lost too much. Luckily it is really hard to win a won game, so I kept attacking and looking for weaknesses. Even although one of his groups ended up living, the bigger group passed away. Very regrettable. Another resignation.

It was nice to start the tournament with 2 wins, but things didn't go as smoothly in the next two games.

 

Third game against a 3d, so I got 2 handicap stones. It was a good game, I felt on top of things most of the time, but I failed to protect a weakness and one of my groups died a miserable death. Although it did go under in a fiery blaze of glory, it sure wasn't an easy game for him. I resigned when that group died.

Last game was even against 1d, and had a lot of interesting situations, but in the end I didn't have enough. Oh well.

Still, it was a good day and it was so nice to be playing serious games over the board.