Well I would like to say that as I reach the end of my 100 games that my play had improved. Don't think it has. Let's get to the games
Game 80
I was planning to practice some specific fighting techniques but it's very hard to force a position when you can use them. So I didn't especially in this swirly game. My opponent has been playing since lockdown in three intensive bursts with gaps in between. Not quite sure what that says though he regularly got to 10-11 kyu in these intensive period. Almost 5k games as well which is an amount.
Anyway I felt most unsure of myself throughout this as it was an aggressive game and I felt like I only had the edges early and was falling behind - something that AI Sensei said I did. Score wise by mid game I was 12 points ahead but rapidly lost that in an approaching maelstrom mainly caused by me cutting into an area of enemy strength and both throwing away 16 points and vastly increasing black strength.
Now 15 points behind the line of stones on 13 row in the center had destroyed my lead ;(
My salvation came a few moves after, I had thrown more bad moves after bad and pushed to the edge
My oppo decided to block at E8 which gave me a potential opportunity (at my level). I reasoned if I played E17 black must block me at E16 or lose 2 stones (this happened as read) I then moved out with D17 giving me 3 liberties to his 2
As it stands this was just high level kyu thinking - ai said jion at D5 and white cant live.
He didn’t play that though and went for D18 with me D17 him C17 and I bent around to C16 and a blacks corner died - it's worth pointing out that even now if Black played B17 he could live in the corner (after losing lots of points but not as bad as before)
My attention then turned to my lonely central stones and again I mis-read. It looks like it was easily possible to win the capturing race At move 163 I start with 8 liberties and my opponent has 6….
Play should have been as follows leading to Seki
As it stood I started with the '2' and should have killed myself and realised this when I noticed I was down to 4 liberties versus my opponents 5
Wow…. Even so I was still apparently 58 points ahead (though these are' decent player who knows what he/she is doing points ahead'
I therefore gave them up for dead and started reinforcing elsewhere
I did pull of a nice clamp attack then misread and lost the attacking stones
Start point, clamp just gone in on N18
This is what I should have done
Soaking up 14 points!
As it was I had a greed mind wipe and played this
The my 'move away' from the center paid off. MY opponent had tried to reinforce that group when it didn’t need tit and allowed me to block 2 liberties. Including this 55.1 point blunder
Even then I misplayed joining at K8 when (like Black) I should have played F12 killing black by giving me a temporary inside eye.
Without those misreads I would have been 83 points ahead but must recognise that I was lucky in the top left and should have killed the middle. Much more practice is needed :(
Game 81
Since I have seen so many tactical weaknesses in the last groups of games I have decided to ignore the result and just focus on fighting. I will study some tactical plans and try and implement them in a game. It won't always work but it might sometime and this has the advantage, at least, of attempting to concentrate on specific weaknesses. At least for the moment the focus will be on capturing cutting stones…
So naturally in the next game I had zero opportunity. This was a fighty game but not really a cutty game mainly because my opponent - a Chilean lady 15kyu since May and 347 games was both aggressive but defensive. This meant I steadily took territory when I had sente even at the cost of stones. That lurid gleam of 'capture something' proved to much for my opponent who captured lost but lost. Probably fortunate for me as I'm carrying a light head cold at the moment so feel a bit rough.
Now I launched a relatively early 3-3 that got destroyed but allowed me to surround so the AI seemed happy. I could have saved the group when a Ko went my way
But obviously didn’t . It's interesting to me the variations AI throws around to get out of these situations..
At move 77 I had given up on the left and decided I needed to secure the right and left so started poking and increasing at the same time. What started working was that I would leave an unimportant stone and my oppo would take I could then sente a defensive position and more points i.e
This allowed me (after a couple of joint defensive moves to play Q13
After this my oppo tried her best to force the central upper group into the center - makes sense as I have a lot of influence lower - she might have been better off with a central play then running back though. Either way I could make hay whilst chasing which is what I did
My favourite 'ignore the atari' was quite late when I was already ahead. Here I left 2 stones to die
But it allowed me to play J18 and secure the left top , admittedly that didn’t get any points, then O18 which took in ab out 4 and including whites gains if it had played P18 probably was a 10 point swing
End game was in full swing now and apart from possible issues with B12 (should be okay tbh) there was not much left to play for and I was apparently 55.5 points ahead. White now launched an invasion at R8. I handled this ok (I had better that was very secure territory - the main weakness was T6 and the 4 stones around O5) Once I had blocked the edge and prevented any shenanigans with the line 5 group I was happy I could handle any more from that invasion
Game 82
Fast game against a provisional player. Their only other game was a 60pt win versus a 15kyu so I wasn't sure if this was an expert new account. As it turns out their opening was decent but both 3-3 invasions went the same way with me retaking he corner and in one case surrounding the remaining stones. I was actually expecting something different in the second invasion.
So in the end must have been a player who had read some books but not played much..
So another game with no cutting defence practice. Though I did get to carry out 33
Game 83
Against a 13kyu with over 5k ranked games behind them and apart from an early high in 2018 of 6kyu! Looks like has been peaking around 9 though seems to be playing less and getting worse over time. Guess what no cut protection! Though I did get to kill in a close fight at the end and with thought managed to stop myself being destroyed….
It was weird though as this was the second person almost preternaturally fixated on maximum defence prior to attack. By move 44 and leaving the opening and I was apparently 16 points ahead and fairly happy with the state of play
134 later and I was 15 ahead and white was about to launch an attack which I was curious at as I had two of the very 2 stones walls I had previously failed to attack.
Here is the start point
Now he forced me into a lower blob and then I made a defensive mistake that could have cost me the lot
Thankfully 5 moves later and he basically removed one of his own liberties and I was re-saved
Now I had an atari round the edge attempt higher up that I turned down but tbh I was nervy about that entire section and went for more defence (though that extra point would have helped)
I got to a secure place and left that side for other end game
A borderline ridiculous hail mary invasion was launched at the end. I was pleased at this though. It's good to practice killing things within your territory though admittedly the amount of 'ignore and play elsewhere moves' I would have to do for this invasion to succeed would have been ridiculously high.
So I thought I would check and the AI ignored the attack until 5 stones were in here
Even then it only the AI only used stones there 5 times versus 11 for white! So that would have been a 17 gain!!
Game 84
After a weeks holiday plus back into work I was ready for a game and to try and see if I could get any of my new 'Combat Series' posts up. As usual with go my opponent failed to acquiesce to my request. He (I think) was a long time play with 5k + games since 2022. Best rating was A 10 kyu in 23 though the default seemed about 12. Lots more play in the last year had seen some big drops in rank.
The game was… unusual. He liked invading and close combat fighting but did not like any of my cuts and even my well 'left alone' 33 point set pieces were approached strangely.
To give one example he did 33 a strongish corner and would have survived except he firstly opened up a seki position (which I took happily) then didn’t follow through allowing me to kill. Up to move 54 he was actually slightly ahead but I had drawn close enough to launch my own 33 invasion but the defence was weird and I swung rapidly ahead
Nothing like tactical genius on my part, I missed this huge own goal on attacking
Cause I was focusing on 3 stones which he had allowed me to double hane
And eventually caught
Note the 3-3 down bottom is now alive.
We are approaching end game now and though I'm in the lead it is only be 11 points so close (with the fail kill it would have been 42ish). By almost end end game I had gained an extra 3 when finally decided to attack the bottom left with B2
The correct move here is A2 and the groups alive but my opponent played elsewhere taking a solitary stone up top and I played A2 and killed pumping me back up to almost 40.
Nice quick game to get the cobwebs off but I really want to practice the combat techniques :(
Game 85
As is almost entirely expected another game with almost none of my practice possible.. This was against another experienced 14k with 5k+games and highs of 10kyu under their belt and they didn’t bite on the 33s until later in the game when I screwed up the defence due to an unusual counter defence. I shall include that in a tactical post as to what I should have done. That fairly cost me a lead as I had done well until then going from 30 points ahead to behind and worse that opened up my moyo to a more dangerous invasion as it was secured. Since that was the key point (and he handled all his 33s the same strange (to me) way I shall just focus on that cock up with no pictures here….
Game 86
A fast game as I pulled off 1 very successful 33 invasion of my own (my opponent didn't bite on mine though did make the strange approach to my own corner that just turned to crap. I also pulled of a threatened ladder capture so two of my combat series aims have been succeeded so will have separate posts.
For this game I was playing a European? Who has only had 16 games with an interesting history having beaten 2 15s a 13 and a 14 (along with 18 and 22 but let's ignore those) and lost to lot's of 10s and 11s. Might explain the slightly weird corner attack. It started with a knights approach to the star point, I large knighted hoping for the 33 invasion but his next move was here
Erm Well it’s nearly a 33 so I extended to E4 and he extended back to D3. Unusual so I hane'd at C3 with Black counter hane'ing at C2 I connect at C4 and white extends back to B2 allowing me to double hane at F3. For some reason cutting was made now which went into the ladder so let's ignore those 2 moves. Next white tried to sneak in on the left edge with me blocking and rather than live he played the unfortunate table of D1 generating a double atari of 2 stones
Then resigned. This last sequence was obviously from an inexperienced player as I wasn't particularly trying to kill.
Game 87
Was against my previous opponent, this time I lost possibly as he didn’t bugger up his 3-3s this time.
The difference here was I launched an invasion that died and he one that lived. I possible could have killed it though BUUUT even though I say that I was eying up pushing safer into his space earlier and missed my shot. The move I wanted was one the AI pushed here
Which would have safely opened up his moyo.
I also later missed a double atari that would still have broken me into the middle
And then another kill just south
Even wiith this I almost got the group but missed another tigers mouth atari that would have killed the lot
And slowly died….
Game 88
As I had enjoyed the last loss and it had not taken too long I decided on a second game.
Anyway this was against a Spanish player with 2k games in 6 years . Heights of 8 kyu in the first few years but playing a lot more recently and dropping. I can see why. He was very aggressive and though I handled it ok I can see how others might crumble under the relentless pressure and continual weird situations.
This game almost had a successful 3-3 by me but his defence was wild and I gave up on making life and just killed some stones and gained strength. I did have though a successful net setup which was used to kill more stones than the net intended.
That resulted in this
Which I was fairly happy with as it was his corner and he ended up trapped in it and I had a huge wall.
Now for the rest of the game I made a 2 space extension which due to his aggression managed to kill12 more stones and link to the right (admittedly the AI was screaming about the left all this period but I eventually build life there)
And life on the left
With another 4 killed stones for me.
Then he invaded my right side here
AI says (as you can see) the weak points are P10 and R12 but he played R8 and since the bottom wall couldn’t be threatened (as it joined to an immortal left group) I was able to block those weaknesses
Game 89
They are coming thick and fast now. Well compared to earlier..Oppo here was the fascinatingly named 'En Hongha' who was a 13k who has just under 1k games in 5 months and spent most of their time at 11.
Another weird 44 approach though almost running the defence on the outside. I wasn’t too bothered - they got a central upper base and I did the same on the right. Mine ended up bigger (or ate more stones)
Now soon after the left and center were defined he launched an invasion it looks like I could have killed
As it stands I wasn’t too bothered as long as I could secure me own group. (god even later I could have killed. One combat series 'kill risky invasions' should be a learning priority)
What's amusing is that for about 50 moves the AI was screaming about killing or living whites left hand group and neither of us saw it all the way until move 148 when white played a living move. Now this dropped my win chance from 69 points! Down to 18 ish but from my point of view as a DDK 18 points is still heavily ahead. My weak end game dropped me to 13. No combat series cleverness for me to report on :(
Game 90
Never play tired and having spent a weekend in Manchester followed by a really bad nights sleep and I was not at my best. Not a good time to face a player whose a 5ker and reached 8kyu at various points this was a massacre with me making consistently bad decisions.
I was already 10 behind by move 35 and then an invasion massacred most of my bottom and it kept getting worse and worse
Here's when things shifted from bad to worse
Game 91
After the first why not try a second knackered game on tilt? This was against an American 14 kyu and things were so even when he/she resigned I was lucky they had work. Still as a plus? I ended up with exactly the same rating as when I started. The only thing of interest to me was my mishandling of a 33 'yea! To training' An upper tigers mouth should have meant I just connected then forced a join before taking a central and 7 point lead.
Instead (read the tired bit) I went auto pilot and double haned when there was no chance of coming out.
Game 92 another bad loss - better slept but a crap day at work. No tilting this time though I just took the loss. Though things started off well his opening was decent and his timing and fighting good as well. A 'new' 15k but a decent one.
Several decent moves showed themselves but I never had the sente to play them. I even saw how the corner was at threat
Comments
Post a Comment