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.

The Evils of MultiTasking

Today I was playing a game and doing quite well. I played thick moves, I didn't make a lot of stupid mistakes (just a few :p) and I knew I had this game won. At the same time, I was chatting with two friends in another window. Did I mention my kids were interrupting me a few times too to ask me things, so yes, I was multitasking as usual. But that was ok, because my game was so easy by now...

I had a corner group, an L+1 group. I have studied that group only two thousand times, so I know without thinking that it can live with A or B. I also know without thinking that A is superior, so in my 'I have a won game and I don't have to try so hard and I know so much better than my opponent' grandiose thinking, I played B...

 

As we all know, B is inferior because there is a gote seki to be made for white now. The worst thing was that I didn't even realize I had made this mistake. In my universe the trumpets were sounding to announce my victory and I blissfully worked on killing my group...

 

We got to endgame, and I stubbornly kept thinking that group was just fine, even after white had played a throw-in at A.

 

I happily filled up all my liberties, till I got a rude awakening when white went for the kill. By ko, but thanks to my filling up of my own liberties, I could not crush this shape but had to play the ko... How stupid! I started to realize that maybe I should hold off on those trumpets for a bit after all. And that next time I should live the RIGHT way with that group.

 

Things actually weren't too bad, the game was won enough that even without that group I still had a big lead. So I spent time trying to find the best ko threats. So much time that my byo yomi clock ran out and white won by time.

I guess next time I will turn off my chat programs when I play :D

New Book Store on the Block

I was happy to find out that the excellent Go Game Guru blog now sells go books. They have a lot of the classics, Life and Death, Tesuji and more, and a bunch of new books I had not seen yet. I might have to find myself a Christmas present on their site ^^ Go check them out at http://gogameguru.com/go-game-shop/category/buy-go-books/! And yes, I am still alive, just have been playing and studying a lot instead of blogging. Good excuse, right?

Unexpected Move

A few days ago I had someone play this against me.

 

I had not seen it before and suspected it wasn't joseki, but the question is how to deal with it. If you want to see the game and how I dealt with it, click here.

Another interesting situation which came up in that game has to do with a capturing race starting at move 176. It is a simple capturing race according to the Hunter book (Counting Liberties and Winning Capturing Races). Still, I was as always surprised to see how much harder it is to read this out in a game, in 30 seconds byo yomi,than from the comfort of your arm chair in studying the Hunter book. Looking back I should have tenuki'ed from it much earlier I think.

Yet Another Go Tournament

Two tournaments in one month. Such a miracle! This was in Boston and I won one game (out of four :D) The game I won surprisingly was the one in which I was giving handicap (2H to a 2k) which usually are my weakest games. Interesting.

 

Picture by John Uckele.

Butterfly Conclusion

This position white can live, although depending on board situation, white might choose a ko anyway.

 

Here is David (from Go Game Guru)'s comment on it, which includes a link to a sensei's library page which is a good and thorough summary of this position.

As you and badge have said, white still can live, as shown at length here: http://senseis.xmp.net/?Butterfly

However, I've found in practise that it's often better to fight the ko as white. This is because it's a heavy ko for black and often you can force black to back down and let you live more comfortably.

Anyway, who wants to grovel for a small life when you can die gloriously in ko...

Interesting position, and thanks to my studying this, the last time it came up in a game, not only did I live, but I managed to 'cut black into pieces' like senseis library says. Ah, the sweet fruits of studying!

Don't worry, I'll find another position in which to die ^^

Butterfly Followup

Thanks Badge, for your input. I had forgotten about the butterfly name. I do remember it is considered bad shape because of the sansan invasion. But when I invaded... It didn't end so well for me.

 

This was your proposal, which is basically correct apart from missing an atari on the way. Of course is easier to see on the board than when you type a sequence.

 

This is how I have learned the invasion (but without the extra okeima stone at N17. As you can see, black's hane at 13 looks weird and superfluous now. Just showing it here for completeness.

 

One day I was playing a black who agreed and instead of the O17 protection decided to atari me at A. For a few moments I was overconfident as always, because I knew that the punishment for that is to cut at P17. No problem, ha, I would kill him so badly!

 

Isn't it great how we can be totally overconfident in our games, even when it is not quite warranted. Soon after he played A, and I cut at P17, I found out that the stone at B was very significant indeed. And instead of the cut being a punishment for him, it actually got me into deeper trouble.

Ouch!

Random Study Subject: Invasions

Since I am studying more again, I have been looking into invasions. This was one of my interesting ones that I didn't know yet before it jumped up and started attacking me.

 

When I played white in a game, I confidently invaded, because we all know that an okeima star point corner lives without any problems, right?

Well...

There was the tiny issue of the other okeima. But this was a nice and sunnny day and the birds were singing, so I was willing to pretend that other okeima wasn't there, since it was too far away to count anyway...

I bet you can predict what happened. Yes, indeed, I died a totally miserable death...

Reader input: What is status of this corner with TWO okeimas?

You Can't Get There from Here

Finally, I played a real life tournament again. On Sunday I drove to Middlebury in Vermont and was amazed and shocked to see the damage hurricane Irene had wrought. Even our favorit snackbar in Woodstock has been mostly washed out.

Anyway I made it to Middlebury just in time for the start of the tournament.

 

I played 4 games.
Game 1: Even, no komi against a 1k, I won by resignation when one of his groups died an unexpected death.
Game 2: Against a 2d, even no komi again, but this time I had black. I lost that game by quite a lot of points.
Game 3: Against a 1d, even, I took black after choosing for colour. I lost by one point on the board, but he had komi too, so 7.5 altogether.
Game 4: Against another 1d. This one I won by resignation again.

 

End result 2-2, not bad, but not stellar either. I'll try to post some interesting positions of the games over the next few days. In my spare time that is, so don't hold your breath ^^

I loved playing serious games over the board again, I am happy I made the drive up to there.

Still in Gamma but No Time to Play

Geez, story of my life. At least I got to play three games on the last day of August, but I haven't been able to get any games in since then. What is more serious is that I didn't even do any tsumego! Hoping next week will be more successful, did I mention I am an optimist?