Alejo's Tenuki » Go Games

Multi-eye-stealing tesuji

alejo — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:18:53 +0000

Lately I’ve decided to start playing go again through the net. Unfortunately, I still haven’t beat my online go anxiety syndrome, so I’m left with watching games on KGS or IGS. During my last night shift I could watch a blitz game played by one 6d and one 3d in KGS. I’m not telling their names since I didn’t ask permission for it.
Time limit for each move was 10 seconds. Taking into account that limit, blitz games tend to be somewhat chaotic and crazy… and still way above my reading ability.

Take a look at this section of the board: White to move.

As you’ll see, this required multiple eye-stealing tesujis on a row and sacrificing a kamikaze stone at S18. So black ends up dead. It’s not very difficult to read right now, after all the tesujis have been played and you have way more than 10 seconds. Would you be able to set this up so that it works with 10 seconds per move? I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t place K19 and R18 with the right timing.

After all, stone placing in Go has a lot to do with timing. And when real timing comes into action I must tell you it was black turn to play. Can black escape? You’ve got ten seconds. Play or give up some stones? What would you choose? Actually, they still had one extra byo-yomi period, so I’ll give you another extra 10 seconds.

The real black player couldn’t solve it during the game. After a minute, I was convinced that black would die anyway and I was obviously wrong. It wasn’t till I replayed it on a board that I realised my mistake. Black could have survived.

Not only survived. Let’s take a look at the whole board:

As you can see there is a white group floating right in the middle of the board. Actually, during the real game, chasing the upper black group only started as a response to black’s attack to H12 group.

So, now, make your move as Black on the board above. You have the real game and the solution in the game below:

[Embedded SGF File]

KGS 5d vs 4d: Tesuji trainning

Unexpected tsumego

alejo — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 16:58:04 +0000

Last week I was wandering around Go problems when I came across this one. It’s this specific kind of tsumegos I fail to solve – the ones that require for illogical reasoning.

After reading some useless sequences I usually end up giving it up, assuming there is no way to overcome that position. Go problems helps me as far as it forces me to look for a solution. A sequence which, if appeared during a game, I would have failed to solve.

Below these lines you have the tsumego as well as a few variations: Black to connect all three stones

[Embedded SGF File]

As you can see, the solution is just plain easy. But I wouldn’t find it.

Losing from the very beginning

alejo — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 15:31:56 +0000

For some reason, games played during the last months have proved me right: my fuseki is awful. The worst I’m at fuseki, the more I have to fight during middle game. The last 20 games have been all-in tsumegos, with the result of the game as a price. Though I’m able to remember the basic theory from “In the beginning” and another fuseki book, it’s looks like if I wasn’t able to apply this knowledge to the actual game.

The result of the game depends on our life-and-death reading ability, nothing else. While I seem to consistently beat 7k, I suffer from mind-blowing defeats against 5k players… my fighting skills may be around 6k KGS.

Here you have a couple of samples of my games:

[Embedded SGF File]

No related posts.

Big moves at yose

alejo — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 16:06:14 +0000

While yose moves are usually small and mainly consist on winning a few points while keeping sente, sometimes we happen to find big moves during the latest phase of the game. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s because of a shortenning of liberties or due to the presence of some aji-loaded stones.

In this case we’ll discuss the importance of big yose moves such as the one played a couple of weeks ago on KGS, between joehung (7dan, playing as white) and Mr12345678 (6dan, black).

At first glance, we can see there are several yose moves to be played on boths sides in sente. But there is a gote move for white which, as painful as it seems, is the unique path to avoid a 20 point loss. Try and make your guess before continuing to the next paragraph.

Though white chances of playing the big point vanished when he played around the upper-right corner and I’m unable to find a path to defend this formation in sente, black’s next move is so harmful it just shouldn’t be allowed in yose. Moreover, this 20 points loss in yose are extremely -if not impossible- hard to recover.

Black’s move was at A11. It doesn’t matter how you answer to this simple hane on the lowest line, white will lose about 20 points. Just in case you want to try it, I’ve provided a few variations on the tsumego below. Please, comment on it if you find any mistake.

[Embedded SGF File]

Below this line you’ll see a comparison of white’s territory after 6 moves and the result by the end of the game. Huge, isn’t it?

Now, how big should the difference be in order to resign? If we take into account that big yose moves exist, resigning on the early stages of the game shouldn’t be considered. On the other hand, wishful thinking is regarded as a kyuish mistake…

The situation below is extracted from a game I had on KGS a couple of weeks ago, too. Mindless filling the gaps and liberty shortening might be very dangerous during the endgame. In this case we can see a corner group being severelly threatenned due to the lack of external liberties. And thus, ending up with just 1 point in territory. The final balance from this situation was black losing 7 points.

As you can see, we had already filled all the external liberties, which may be worth 1 point each. Playing a 7 points move in this phase of the game may mean the difference between defeat and victory if the game is very close, since all the other big and small points should have already been played.

Pro’s shining moves

GTL gold and silver reviews

alejo — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:45:54 +0000

During the last month I’ve started working on a full 24-hours shift but, as I’m only necessary from time to time, this situation leaves me with some lonely long hours. While studying takes most of my time, studying go seems to be more enjoyable.

Unfortunatellyl, I cannot connect to KGS from my job, so I had to look somewhere else if I wanted to learn Go -playing was discarded after checking the firewall-. Then I remember a site I used to visit when I was double-digit kyu.: The Go Teaching Ladder.

In fact, I found a couple of details I’d missed before, but I’ll only mention the Gold-and-silver awards given to certain reviews. Certainly, gold reviews are an extraordinaily good source of Go knowledge, even if the game is high above my understanding of the game.

In this case, I’d like to share one specific review with you but due to copyright infringements, I’m only allowed to share the link so that you can download it from their site: LINK

6723

Hourousha

7 dan

StefanW

SebastianH

6.0

B+R

2008-05-24

Enjoy

Game Reviews

See what you want to see

alejo — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:05:59 +0000

For some reason I’m missing, I only happen to see what I want to see or, more specifically, what I think I should see. During a game, if I think I don’t have any possible escape or way to survive, I’ll miss it and give up reading. And viceversa, were I to think there is a solution, I’d read till I find it.

As you may have already guessed, this brings me some hard times while playing go. It feels like if I had a reading-switcher in my mind, which would unconsciously block me from reading certain sequences, thus leading me to unexpected fights or, in this case, death and defeat.

The situation above is extracted from a game I played this week… and I’m black. Though I could have resigned by now, I still thought I had a remote chance of winning thanks to killing the C15 stones and the survival of the E6 group. However, during the middle game, I didn’t expect the huge dragon on the bottom right to be severely threatened and, therefore, I didn’t bother about its future till it was did bad. As you can see above, black is about to be cut and die.

No. Wait a second, this is a 20-25 kyu tsumego. Black lives. It took 10 seconds on my post-game review, I’m quite certain you can find it too, don’t you?

Unfortunately, I missed the right sequence during the game. All my reading was focused on sacrificing the L13 stones and connecting. In the end, I managed to kill my L13 stones and the huge dragon on the bottom right (I’m not uploading the sequence… or I’ll have nightmares for an entire month). The only excuse for this error is the first sentence of this post: I only happen to see what I want to see or, more specifically, what I think I should see. I remember being convinced that white would get what he wanted and I would lose the game. Though my mood constantly modifies my style from an all-offensive game to a big moyo strategy, it’s the first time I realise how much my game is influenced by the positivity (or lack) embedded in my thoughts.

No related posts.

Tsumegos and my reading (in)ability

alejo — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:04:44 +0000

This week I’ve decided to start playing go, again. After some teaching during the weekend, I needed to play some serious games over the net. As a result I ended up badly beaten by a 11k in KGS, due to some huge careless reading – assuming that not reading at all could be considered careless reading.

Playing another game with a friend on a real board forced me to improve my reading if I wanted to win after another awful fuseki. After some pincering and counter-pincering we were both engaged on a huge fight for a side of the board. And there was another fight on the opposite corner. These two situations made me wonder about the power of a good reading ability.

In order to fix this weakness of mine, I’ve been trying to solve some problems on SmartGo. And there it was, this unexpectedly cool tsumego with black trying to live on the corner or connecting through D1. If I was confronted this situation during a real game as white, my first move would have been to play D1, just to tear black appart, but it would have allowed him to live on the corner withougt any benefit on my side. So my thoughts would have led me to play B4 and assume there was nothing to do about it.

First glance conclusion at this tsumego was nothing but a huge surprise: Black can be killed!! This could be incredibly useful for my games! After having spent a few minutes on this tsumego, I gave up. A2, B1, C1, D1 and E1 were the first moves from my unsucessful attempts. And there it was, the solution. Painfully simple and effective.

Since there are lots of branches in the sgf, I’ll upload a limited version on the image by the end of the post, as well as the sgf files loaded in Eidogo.

It all started with the position above: white failed to kill black during the real game. In fact, after having spent some long minutes thinking of it and trying to read sequences, I gave up and replayed the situation at the PC. Unfortunately, I couldn’t manage to get a successful result for white but I still wonder about the real chances I had of killing black. Can you kill black?

Well, here I leave the sequence to the first tsumego, as you can see it’s so painfully obvious and simple, it hurts.

And the full sgf loaded on Eidogo, so that you can explore as much branches as you wish:

[Embedded SGF File]

Life and death KGS tsumegos

2nd TransAtlantic Youth Go Match

alejo — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:29:15 +0000

Day: April 18, 2010.
Hour: 15:00 GMT, 11 AM Eastern, 8 AM Pacific
Place: KGS server

What happens?? North America versus Europe.
Rules: ING rules, with time controls of 30 minutes main time + 10 moves/5 minutes Canadian-style overtime.

By now you should have already filled that day on your calendar with a “do not disturb, I’m at KGS” note. Or, at least, this is what the poll at Godiscussions points out, since a third of the participants haven’t voted for North America nor Europe, but for a KGS collapse.

Just in case you want to know the players for each team, check the American Go Association announcement.

Life and death KGS tsumegos

alejo — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:55:13 +0000

Sometimes, while watching a game on KGS, you find a game filled with the traditional tsumegos you’ve repeated once and again in Goproblems.com. Here is one of these samples, where you’ll find some problems for double-digit kyus, some that I didn’t manage to solve in real time and some I wouldn’t have solved with a decent amount of time. This game was played on KGS, between Naomichan and Howzulee, white and black respectively, being both 6 dans according to the KGS rating system. You’ll have the whole game loaded in Eidogo by the end of the post, but I’d like to put some pictures of the game.

As you can see from the image below, right at the beginning of the middle game, they both had a floating group, marked with triangle for black and circle for white; moreover, the latter has two unconnected cutting stones. From this image you can already theorise the nature of this game will be involved with fighting, right?

A few moves later, the next situation showed up:

As a you can see, white is trying to close black and kill him, and thus, the played this hane in J14. Unfortunately for white, he has many weaknesses and cutting points around so this wasn’t the best option. On the other hand, if white hadn’t played this capping move and he had played J13, for example, black would still have tried to struggle for life escaping through the J14 gap. If you already imagine what happened, you may want to skip these lines, but once you’ve reached this point and realised white has to sacrifice one side, which one would you retain? You can choose between the upper one, which gives you quite a a moyo on the upper side of the board since we are talking about pressing on the fifth line. But then black would have a strong group on the centre of the board from K7 to K 14 and would have certain advantage in future fights. If you decide to sacrifice the upper side, you are giving out a lot of points by saving the K13 stones, but you may be able to keep some pressure on the K7 group.

A few moves later, the next situation showed up:

On this image you’ll see what a 6 dan player thinks of this situation: give up the upper side and gain strength to attack the central black group, the shape of white around the J13 stone is quite strong but could be improved using some sort of net-like move, H12 or H11 for a lighter connection. But I can’t say I would taken the same path. You can zoom in the image to take a deeper look.

So now black floating group from the upper side has been settled down, but he has a floating group right in the middle, with another couple of white stones cutting at K5. White, on his turn, has two groups of cuttings stones, one around K13 and the previously mentioned around K5. But there is something I’m missing in my description of the board: the aji of R7.

We’ve already talked about the relevance of aji and how to exploit it, but there is nothing better than watching an aji being used by dan players.

An aji which was removed and played a few moves later on, giving as a result the situation replayed on the right side of these lines. As you can see, white has pushed through R11 and black has defended the S11 stones by pushing white from below, expecting white to hit against an unbreakable wall: R8.
Due to the time settings, black wasn’t able to read what was going to happen within the next moves when he played S9. Can you spot the tesuji that white used? In fact, it’s very easy once you’ve spotted it, but I wonder what would happen if you encounter this situation on your blitz games, with just a few seconds per move and your opponent’s last moves have just been “pushing the borders” – style.

Well, all in all, taking into account the last events, I’d like to take a glance at the whole board, just to figure out how the game is developing. This is what we find:

Well, black settled in the upper and lower sides. White has the right side. White’s move 116 is a declaration of war against the central black group. Black happens to lengthen his agony by struggling through the G8 area, shortly before being cut by white, who is then cut by black elsewhere. Whatever, after a series of mutual I’ll-kill-you-before-you-kill-me moves which I can hardly follow, the board appears to be a complete mess:

Black is being encircled and he lacks of eyespace. The only remaining option, as seen in “Attack is the best form of defense“, is to kill the central white group around J 10. White tries to escape through the upper side of the board with move 150. But there is a tesuji which will make white stones die in vain, can you read it? It’s another sample of the inconvenience of playing empty triangles. So, it seems like the easy way to escape didn’t work out, lets look for the hard one.

This sequence, I must admit, is totally beyond my reading ability right now, I could have spend a dozen minutes looking at it and still wouldn’t get it. But it’s possible: white escaped through the lower side. On the thumbnail by the side, you have the answer to this tsumego, the hardest one of the day.

The cross marked stone was sacrificed as move 156, the starting move of the sequence and was captured with move 161.

Finally, while playing the yose, players tend to follow each others move when it’s sente. But there was a point where white didn’t play the expected move or, at least, the one I expected.

Which is the correct answer for black 257?

Ok, then, here I leave you with the full game, loaded into Eidogo. Enjoy it, and, please, comment on the post!!

[Embedded SGF File]

Attack is the best form of defense

alejo — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:02:36 +0000

This post is based on a real game I was watching on KGS. The game was actually a blitz game, so players didn’t have much time to think about deep strategies, nor did the audience. And that is referring to myself, I wasn’t able to follow some of the moves in real time, I needed some extra time in order to understand some moves, but the one that stroke me the most was played in the next position.

As you can see, black is surrounding the white group around K6, a big dragon indeed, whose death would mean the end of the match.

Market by A,B and C is the sequence I thought of to make the white group live. I couldn’t be more wrong. Ideas and moves like the next one make me realise the huge level difference between myself and a 5 dan player.The sequence I marked, though it grants life, ends up in gote for myself and is just passive defense. On the real game, the movement was exactly the opposite: sente and attack. In an attempt to kill the black group placed around R14, white played T15.

Due to this attack, black was, as well, forced to find a path to life, where was his path? Killing the white group around Q18. This time, I wasn’t even able to think of a passive defense that black had already placed his offensive defense.

I’ll leave you the game below so that you can enjoy it too

[Embedded SGF File]

Life and death KGS tsumegos

Barcelona’s Tournament 2010 results

alejo — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:41:45 +0000

This weekend was held the 2010 Barcelona Go Tournament, organised by “La Pedra” club. Finally, a total amount of 146 players showed up for the competition; with over 40 EGF dan players and around 30 double digit kyus, it seems like the tournament level was, on average, quite high.
Taking into account the absence of a few good Spanish players, the amount of local players listed among the top 20 is limited to Oscar Anguila (15th, 3 dan) being Pau Carles the next Spanish player, who appears in the list as 21rst.

Since the amount of players summed up to 146 and it would be a mess to post it here, check the original list for further details HERE.

Barcelona Tournament: 20-21 February

alejo — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:32:57 +0000

Over 110 people will be playing go during the 20th and 21rst of February while taking part in this year’s Barcelona Tournament. It seems like we’re going to beat the previous attendance record, stated at 118 players, and be placed among the most popular Go tournaments in Europe.

Here you have a list of the players sorted by EGD rank:
029. 14201286 DE 7d (2772) In-seong Hwang
031. 10349537 FR 7d (2750) Junfu Dai
003. 10333389 RO 7d (2686) Cristian Pop
035. 10998416 FR 6d (2601) Yanqi Zhang
011. 14898345 ES 6d (2593) Lluis Oh
110. 10325249 RO 6d (2591) Cornel Burzo
046. 10749860 CZ 5d (2574) Jan Simara
065. 10401083 CZ 6d (2556) Jan Hora
014. 10337239 FR 6d (2536) Paul Drouot
107. 10349350 FR 5d (2501) Antoine Fenech
013. 10733712 FR 5d (2494) Benjamin Papazoglou
007. 10801923 RS 5d (2473) Nikola Mitic
104. 14349467 UK 5d (2418) Vanessa Wong
019. 10337085 RS 5d (2404) Milos Bojanic
033. 10450561 ES 4d (2369) Cesar Sanchez
052. 10598720 ES 4d (2355) Ignacio Cernuda
034. 10462408 FR 4d (2347) Simon Billouet
015. 10313083 RS 5d (2343) Mijodrag Stankovic
044. 10549407 FR 4d (2340) Toru Imamura
009. 13562450 ES 3d (2309) Oscar Anguila
048. 13050752 ES 3d (2293) Javier Fernandez-Villares
049. 13437974 ES 3d (2289) Joan Alemany
022. 13701094 ES 3d (2288) Antonio Egea
010. 10386013 ES 3d (2275) Joan Pons
032. 10398036 ES 3d (2270) Pau Carles
018. 10313127 RS 4d (2219) Dejan Krstic
050. 10325018 ES 2d (2179) Francesc Fernandez
017. 10750245 RO 3d (2141) Bogdan Campianu
103. 14633652 NL 1d (2130) Kim Ouweleen
108. 14586693 FR 1d (2077) Ngoc-Trang Cao
004. 13001890 ES 1d (2067) Albert Sanchez
045. 10913210 FR 1d (2055) Dominique Cornuejols
058. 13749087 ES 1k (2050) Andres Tallos
002. 14262820 ES 1k (2046) Angel Pina
037. 10425349 FR 1d (2023) Stephane Poisson
063. 13425049 CZ 1k (2022) Vladimir Binovec
051. 12613260 ES 1k (1993) Junko Matsuura
064. 14362304 CZ 2k (1986) Simon Zeckarias
042. 13933546 ES 1k (1975) Hugo Valls
057. 13950497 ES 2k (1945) Nil Garcia
060. 13849748 CZ 2k (1917) Jitka Bartova
041. 13637239 ES 2k (1915) Julio Martinez
084. 14950705 FR 2k (1914) Pierre Averous
040. 14662076 FR 2k (1878) Xavier Richard
100. 14025748 FR 2k (1878) Julien Sagit
109. 10774687 ES 2k (1877) Fernando Avanzini
016. 14913096 RO 2k (1853) Arpad Balazs
105. 10337261 RO 2k (1844) Irina Suciu
087. 13062643 DE 2k (1836) Pascal Hitziger
001. 14501487 ES 2k (1832) Jordi Urmeneta
093. 14586605 FR 5k (1814) Jonathan Marcos
099. 14362018 FR 2k (1770) Milena Bocle
021. 10333037 ES 4k (1758) Marc Gonzalez
101. 15350720 FR 4k (1712) Gabriel Aussibal
006. 14286734 ES 5k (1645) Juan-Jesus Ligero
094. 15398328 FR 5k (1641) Paul-clement Sanchez
085. 14933710 FR 5k (1635) Christophe Averous
096. 14998863 RO 5k (1614) Andrei Cherestes
075. 13549437 ES 5k (1603) Alberto Parolari
079. 14274623 ES 5k (1540) Jose-Manuel Tena
080. 14874882 FR 5k (1535) Christophe Rodo
091. 10350439 RO 6k (1469) Vasile Bunea
090. 14233714 RO 6k (1451) Dorin Chis
102. 13433354 BE 5k (1442) Laurent Pottier
020. 13986368 FR 8k (1397) Claire Rioualen
092. 10386453 RO 7k (1389) Gabriel-Andrei Ormos
038. 10413051 FR 8k (1379) Guy Puigsegur
059. 15286667 FR 7k (1377) Robert Prentice
098. 13713238 RO 7k (1373) Valeria Costea
039. 10537175 FR 7k (1367) Philippe Richard
086. 14701192 ES 8k (1365) Daniel Pellicer
043. 14850704 ES 7k (1359) Ricardo Martin
027. 12474264 ES 7k (1344) Isabel Barros
028. 14801556 UK 8k (1328) Robin Dews
047. 12450691 ES 8k (1328) Jordi Jane-Cardo
008. 14649338 ES 9k (1311) Eloy Martin
095. 14925856 RO 8k (1310) Codrut Cherestes
005. 14950859 RO 7k (1300) Lucian Bobu
023. 14650702 ES 8k (1294) Antonio Mesones-Ruiz
081. 15225518 ES 8k (1266) Fernando Holgado
088. 13713986 RO 8k (1261) Allen Coliban
053. 13713095 ES 9k (1235) Miguel Murat
062. 00000000 CZ 9k (1200) Lucie Holeckova
025. 00000000 RO 9k (1200) Andrei Razvan
024. 12801162 ES 10k (1081) Alex Matencio
026. 13798092 ES 11k (1041) Araceli Checa
012. 10301049 ES 12k (1030) Marc-Ignasi Corral
030. 14837779 CZ 11k (1029) Zdenek Kouba
061. 14537017 CZ 13k (0876) Marie Simkova
054. 15062487 ES 13k (0805) Sergio Tomas
106. 14686914 FR 13k (0787) Pierre Boudailliez
078. 15298613 ES 13k (0756) Felipe-Pedro Rama
056. 15398603 ES 14k (0724) Alonso Torres
082. 14925823 ES 14k (0718) Sonia Pulido
036. 00000000 ES 14k (0700) Michel Cornu
072. 00000000 ES 14k (0700) Carles Hoyo
077. 14813568 ES 17k (0691) Jordi Gaset
097. 15274875 RO 14k (0687) Ioan Cherestes
083. 14998819 ES 16k (0536) Manuel Gutierrez
070. 00000000 ES 18k (0300) Ignasi Faura
076. 00000000 ES 18k (0300) Carmen Blasi
089. 15225881 RO 19k (0238) Crina Novac
055. 15086489 ES 19k (0216) Isabel Santana
074. 00000000 ES 19k (0200) Olivier Sfez
068. 00000000 ES 20k (0100) Xavier Lleonart
066. 00000000 ES 20k (0100) Teresa Sanjuan
069. 00000000 ES 20k (0100) Ricard Mas
073. 00000000 ES 20k (0100) Nadia Carbo
067. 00000000 ES 20k (0100) Miquel Massot
071. 00000000 ES 18k (0100) Jordi Mercade

As you can see from the list above, there are over 30 dan players already registered and a few double-digit kyus, so that everyone can enjoy and have fun.
Cheap registration price is still available, till the end of January. For further information on accommodation, flights, timetables, prices and such, check the tournament’s site: http://bcn2010go.blogspot.com/

When it comes to me, it’s very possible that I participate in the tournament among other DDK players, as well as some friends of mine. However, if under weird circumstances I can’t finally play, I’m very interested in watching some games and meeting some friends who I haven’t seen for a long time…

Pro’s shining moves

alejo — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:25:07 +0000

Today this thread has been started at GoDiscussions by a user called nchh. I’m unaware of predecessors, but it might be very interesting.
The first shining move they talk about are played in this awesome game:

Black: Kong Jie
White: Park YungHoon
Match: 14th LG cup semifinal

The game has a few commentaries on the unforeseen shining moves, but the results are painfully obvious. Here you have the game loaded in EidoGo:

[Embedded SGF File]

My first serious turn-based game

alejo — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:29:33 +0000

Since the network configuration at my job place is somewhat restrictive, all real-time servers such as KGS don’t work. The solution I came up with is playing through turn-based servers like Dragon Go Server.

Unfortunately, my account was created in 2006, as a 30k. And still has the same ranking. So I’m rapidly climbing in the ladder, but I’m just playing a very interesting game with a couple of life-and-death problems.

The game started very peacefully, both of us creating big moyos, which didn’t last too long before being invaded. My invasion seems to have reached success since it has been finally connected to a stone freely placed in tengen. But I felt a lot of pressure from my opponents attack, so I had to run for life…

His invasion is still on the go:

As you can see above, black is somewhat into trouble because of the surrounding white strength, but white does have some weaknes which could be exploited.

It took us over a day to make the last 15 moves, so most moves are well-thought. They may be wrong, but I’ve carefully thought about this situation.

The move sequence on the real game was this one:

As you can see, B 77, tried to connect and scape. B 81 created a possible ko-eye, which was turned into a false eye by W 82. This last move was unnecesarily answered with B83, since it was a bamboo joint and allowed me to make an extra move: W 84, and thus removing some extra eye space, but allowing black to take W 82 and convert the false eye into a real one.

After this exchange, black is trying to escape by peeping on a single jump. According to popular wisdom: “even a moron connects against a peep”, I happened to … block it on the other side… assuming there is more danger coming from the weak stones around O14.

Having never before played in a turn-based server, it seems like this players have a better level than an equal rating from KGS. Obviously, the amount of time given for each move in both servers isn’t as quite as the same, but I still can’t imagine a KGS 14k making me suffer like this when playing without handicap.

No related posts.

Uncommon behaviour: being polite

alejo — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:12:22 +0000

Last week I happened to lose a game, I was totally beaten. Even I could count the points I had on the board… In order to practise yose a little bit, I asked my opponent if he would mind playing the game till the end, though assuming I had lost.

After a short while, he accepted my request and so we went on playing. We went on playing and I was shown a couple of tesujis I hadn’t realised. In the end, my opponent made a invasion in a 4×3 corner, killed my group and shortened my score by a bunch of points. We held a nice conversation about the life-and-death situation of some groups and the whole game. A couple of minutes later, my opponent confessed he had been impressed by my petition and thus, he happily accepted.

I regard that game as the most didactic one in the whole month.

Mental note: Noone is polite, if you are polite, people are more willing to teach you.

As easy as it seems, very few people are following this rule. Though KGS still retains a friendly atmosphere, usually only 5 words take place during the games: hi, gg (stansds for good game), good luck, thx and bye; going somewhat deeper within the game may come back as a nice reward.

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