The Heavenly 100 - Games 60-67

 

Game 60

First game after the Christmas break, plus I am carrying a heavy cold and there are home issues that are stressing me out so I was not sure about the wisdom of a game. As it stands a 15kyu decided to chance their luck which was brave of them and lucky for me.

When his second move was tengen followed by his 3rd being a direct corner attachment and I just concentrated on building up my 3 corners. 

Fairly rapidly attacks were launched in dangerous areas which were dealt with by loss and a resign followed as I started eating into his hoped for central territory at top and bottom.

Not much of use to talk through though I do want to point out the risk of some of these early attacks - perhaps not even the attacks themselves but the committing to the attack locally when using that attack as a solidifying sacrifice and jumping away may be better..

In the following a single stone cut was introduced at D7 - now the AI actually likes most of the moves by black up until A8 because the top Section can be built up then sacrificed to allow black to eat whites lower section - something neither of us seemed to recognise.

AI suggestion from 34 was as follows allowing black to gain a Sentei hit against the right corner using that thickness.

The other attack just prior to the resign was up top starting with this stone - now I was expecting pressure against the G/H stones 

Now the AI again seemed broadly supportive of the attack but never gave black any territory during it..

I was apparently looking to be up 67.5 points at this point so was heavily ahead. I wont trust my luck and play again tonight though and hopefully I will have thrown off this head cold by Saturday..

Game 61

Just over the cold so played again to get beaten in a messy fighty fight versus a 14kyu Looking at record one who has been playing a year and raised up to mainly 10/11 by the end of the year then a descent to 14 in a post christmas drop much the same as me really.

I want to practice fighting a bit more so the game is useful.

First bad fight (for me) occurred early. I played R3 first when there was a way to kill the corner

Though only if black joins with 4. It should instead apparently threaten those 3 stones the end structure seems fairly even.

My big loss was in not managing to kill the Dragon that resulted from the above. I sadly didn’t have the capacity to work out how

AI says the following

In reality I eventually played the 1 move but had before then allowed black to sneak higher in the bottom left thus allowing the group to escape.

Game 62

Restarting after emotionally turbulent not-go connected connected half year of life basically throwing everything it had at me. So back with a provisional account. Oppo here was a Hungarian 16 kyu who only had an account since April and a decent 211 games with steady progress. Interesting run of  recent wins though having scalped a 13 kyu 2 days earlier.

He was certainly aggressive which helped open up my always existent lack of game skills and took an early lead due to my weakened recognition of weak groups in fighting. If anything he was too aggressive and eventually allowed 3 groups to be sucked up whilst missing a huge defensive fail.

On my part that I sadly relied on (as in saw the weakness but played elsewhere hoping he would focus on the current fight allowing me an extra move to correct…he did but that's a really bad move on my part)

What happened consistently early was that I would trap a group then forget about it as in here when I was concentrating on a ladder for the 2 stones and had not noticed P16 being played by black meant I needed to capture the N19/18 group now else lose my own O19/18 group

That one move switched me from 16 points ahead to 7 behind. Kudos on my opponent though but as a chorally to that I wonder slightly whether it gave to much confidence and meant he pushed to save groups I was focused on.

From there for around half the game I started building the center (yuk) and my oppo the left side. Then my oppo tried to save 2 groups in the middle solidly in white territory and just failed

To busy hunting these two I failed to notice I had 6 stones at risk of  a simple diagonal

At  move 185 I did notice but still - dangerously, played the following

Gambling on killing those 2 stones AND my opponent not seeing the kill move to the right would wipe that central group plus he had to miss the move while I killed the two with 188 which he did with an unusual move 

Allowing me to protect with a 40 point swing.

We played a little further but blacks bottom was insecure and I was able to force my way in to wipe out the left bottom and secure my own handing corner

A fun win.

Game 63

Oppo here new and shouldn’t have been near 17 kyu, looks like he beat a 17 at 9v9 and got placed accordingly? 28 ranked games and most of those (won at least) 9v9 not much of play note and their fate was sealed when they decided to try and save a group I had surrounded in the center

Note the blue circle weakness in my own stones that the AI was grumpy about the entire game. That should have been the attack as opposed to what actually occurred..

Game 64

A not very talkative 16 kyu was the oppo here. Started February and looks a new start as opposed to a re-start as there was that usual huge drop of to 600 points before a respectable improvement and 941 games! (where do people get the time? I'm lucky to get 3 games a week…) Too about move 64 it was broadly even with white slightly increasing a minor lead. The oppo was aggressive but I was doing a better job than usual in not playing puppy go and at this point broke out from my white moyo thus trapping whites bottom group. There was still a huge space in the middle the AI was getting stressed no one was playing in and eventually when I did I almost lost the group through incompetent play , for a bit, thankfully my oppo made a mistake and I got the group alive (it shouldn’t have been that hard to save it but I'm out of practice protecting that 2 space.

It's curious to me sometimes how easy it is to overestimate your opponents space. If you look at the board now

And I was busy worrying that white would gain all of that upper central space and along with bottom right and top left would be in the lead!

But that was just bollards

With the territory colours you can see that Black has a fairly safe advantage and was about 16 points up..Anyway I launched an inconsidered invasion that white easily mopped up and ended up winning by 9. Fun though

Game 65

Surprise mid week game. My opponent was a 13 kyu who bar the first drop had been steady around 10-12 most of their time with a drop in the last month and 158 games in 3 months?

One thing to say before I started is that I enjoyed the game and I didn't get the normal racing heart and stress of competition - something I was pleased at as I didn’t want it. One thing I wanted to concentrate on was not stressing about my oppos territory and tbh by move 33 when I would usually start freaking I didn’t (and when checking post game white was only 3.9 points ahead) A successful 3-3 invasion to counter one of hios brought the score broadly level before white pulled ahead slightly again  when pushing out his upper invasion

So we reached here

White is slightly ahead (+1.6 points) so with komi is slightly behind where he should be. But things started to go wrong here as he tried to launch several attacks around the 90 stones and eventually the F7ish space that really hurt there chances. TBH space is limited here so fighting at high kyu levels is risky anyway. I ataried 90 from the bottom and he counter ataried at P12 allowing me to take. He then ataried at Q14 but I just filled and those 2 remaining stones were dead but he added another 2 before realising there was no place to escape to, he might have been better attacking the cross just above

He then took the sensible hane at the head of 2 at N17 but I just defended at Q17. A fortuitous attack on my part then assisted. I dropped an extension to G7 making a ladder breaker for N13 and then initiated

He then contacted my stones and allowed his next 3 to be hit on the head allowing those to be killed for no good reason

The remainder of the game was just bad end game which he did better than me.

One other thing I was pleased with was forcing almost seki in the top left thus preventing 5 points? - IF I had played E19 White couldn’t approach my 2 without dying

Close though

Game 66 

I was due a mashing and one wandered over. Handicap by 2 in my favour which to my mind is  basically a you lose anyway and any advantage from the two stones was lost rapidly. Oppo was a 11kyu wo hovered between 7kyu! And 11 kyu so I got him on a temporary downturn who also had 5k ranked games in the last 2 years? Not much to say as the key loss was a fairly to defend the bottom left which switched from 9.7 points ahead to white being 19 above a lead which then steadily increased. As ever I had my chance to correct several times with the last chance being here

Game 67

Usually not a good idea to play on tilt after a loss but the previous had been so quick I thought why not? Anyway unusually  I wasn't punished with a 2nd 11kyu but this time gained a 14kyu whose heights had been 11kyu. This was a lot calmer. My oppo was certainly aggressive but this caused her to move into dangerous situations and several times fights were initiated that went badly.

I also voluntarily threw a corner  - my top left star point start. I considered defending then felt I could do better elsewhere

Anyway the first fight started top right with my 3-3 invasion coming under pressure

Then this move occurred followed by the collapse of blacks top riight stones after black went after my triangle and exposed there own position

Tbh at the mid point I was still only 21 ahead so with komi 16 ish and after two more aggressive pushes the following weird invasion of D7 occurred much to the Ai's post match review distress

I can see the potential logic, the upper white groups have what 4 liberties each and the one below has 3. So maybe if I make a mistake hay can be made? Interestingly the AI recommended ignoring it entirely which indicates even with a second move the position was safe and playing the bottom atari and seeing what was recommended we come up with

Or

As it was I'm not a good player so defended

The final attack of the game left some black weaknesses and when I played  K6  (to the right of 1) The AI recommended play should have gone

Whereas what actually happened was black joined at L4 allowing me to atari at F8, black joins so I can atari the 2 single stones with H7 Black tried to counter atari with J6 but I just joined at J7, Black then carried on the attack! With H6 (and AI says a 51 point swing..)I droip to G threatening to Atari the left group and black as opposed to joiing played G5 to carry on fighting.

The problem being that I had J5 which threated 2 groups with atari and black resigned.

Annoyingly the AI says my counter was not a good choice and I should have played the move it was hoping for all game at F5 which leads to this and 15 captures! and not just that the destruction of the entire bottom black position.. Wow.