oiseaux morts 1994 posted:

Not at all, I think progressing from 9 to 13 to 19 is good. Each board size introduces new concepts that might overwhelm if you rush straight into 19. 9 games are short and many so you develop an eye for atari, life and death and fighting; 13 teaches you enclosures, extensions and moyos. You then combine the two in 19 with a grasp of the fundamentals.

oiseaux morts 1994 posted:

Quick rundown of major issues:

Move 15: One of the main things in Go is trying to keep your stones connected. If you play R7, white can respond at R5. This is a great move for white because not only does it split your stones but it puts pressure on you to make life in the corner. You now have two weak groups. Ergo if you wanted to get around the white stones in this situation, S6 would have been more elegant.

Move 25: The shape you've made here is called the empty triangle and in pretty much all cases will come back to damage or ruin you in some way. It's hard to explain but as you play more, you'll start to see why it sucks. You want to try and avoid it. Presumably you played there to "shut off" your corner and gain some territory. I would suggest try playing at F17 instead - so even if white does play in the direction of B13, you've taken the same or more profit on the other side.

Move 42: You can now kill the corner with S18. At this point it would seem neither of you are aware of this, but this is a common thing. Even in my games, if the life or death problem is super hard, I'll play elsewhere and hope I can come to it later. EDIT: This is bad Go. Read it out properly and know there and then!

Move 99: One rule - if you are attacking something, don't touch it. J13 is just as aggressive, but leaves your stones in less danger.

xopods posted:

General comments:

Don't invade prematurely.
Don't defend useless stones.
Get better at L&D.
I know that ko fights are fun, but stop looking for them everywhere. Your two biggest blunders come about by trying to get into a ko fight when your opponent has no need to fight the ko in order to completely wreck your position.

Specific comments (including critiques of White's play too, not just yours):

http://eidogo.com/#4slSE2WTs

uranus posted:

sweeeet

silvergoose posted:

And then comparing to me, who can play a few chords, comparing to someone who has never touched a string instrument. Makes sense.

xopods posted:

Don't think too much until you're 15k or so, just play what seems reasonable to you at the time and see how it turns out, and then watch stronger players play to absorb some intuition for the flow of the game by osmosis. It's simply impossible to understand Go at all until you have a bunch of hands-on experience.

uranus posted:

any day is good for me! Pander play a move >:[

xopods posted:

Welcome to the game, and to a lifetime of addiction.

I should point out, however, that capturing stones is not a strategic matter, but a tactical one. Many a game has been lost by a player fixated on capturing a few stones and failing to think about whether or not that actually advances the larger strategic goal of taking more territory than the other guy. Generally speaking, in a high handicap game, if Black is capturing White's stones, it's because White intended to sacrifice them.

Kheldragar posted:

A lesson on tournament play.

pointsofdata posted:

if black just plays c1 what can white do about it? feel like i'm missing something

Kheldragar posted:

Think like that, and you'll end up being those kgs players who have thousands of games yet remain at 15-18k.

Kheldragar posted:

I beat Oiseaux in a 0.5 komi game by 0.5 points!

xopods posted:

Actually, W6, W26, W28 and W36 are all game-losing moves. Every time you allow Black to hane at the head of two like that you're committing a blunder on the order of 15 points or so.

xopods posted:

You seem to be losing the plot a lot. You start something in an area and then appear to forget what you were trying to accomplish and just go start something else. It may seem like high-level players tenuki at random, but it's never really at random. There are basically two reasons to tenuki:

(a) the local temperature has dropped because you're reached a relatively stable position, so it's now more profitable to play elsewhere, or

(b) it's not currently clear what local continuation will prove to be strategically best, so you turn elsewhere for the time being to see how the rest of the board develops before returning.

Kheldragar posted:

ITGO league game one for aeroplane:

http://eidogo.com/#1tK56cCdE

oiseaux morts 1994 posted:

uranus posted:

http://online-go.com/game/523935

I lost b 5.5 points! First game ive played that came that close. I had it till i blundered toward the end in the upper right. its much more fun when its close, though!

also here is a game i played with xom where he destroyed me after giving me 9 stones. i think he was probably going easy on me toward the end and probably could have taken away what little territory i had 'secured'. a learning experience!

http://online-go.com/game/515464

goodness posted:

So she played at T19, which took away the extra space that was preventing White from taking it?

Zekky posted:

Well I ended up playing a handicap game with a 13k goon, I lost badly but Xombar reviewed the game afterwards so it was an edifying experience in the end.

Uncle Jam posted:

If you're a beginner just play as fast as you can until you absolutely can't stand that your stones are getting eaten all the time. That's the time to ask for a review.

Zekky posted:

How do you properly respond to an invasion? I keep losing to them even if it's behind a well developed wall, for example white placing around G7 in the image below (assuming the edges of the board are where the image cuts off):



It seems like with all the black pieces around you should be able to stop white from achieving much inside your territory.

Kheldragar posted:

Are we missing the part where he says "Assuming the edges of the board are where the picture cuts off"?

Xom posted:

o.m. 94 posted:

OGS ranking system is fine, everyone is offset about 2 ranks from KGS

None of this matters

It's all relative

Play Go until you start losing more than you win, then overcome that, and your rank goes up

AdorableStar posted:

Also if you imagine the shape of the corner after both hane's have been played, it's clearly the vital point. You don't even need to visualise white 2 and 4, just the black stones extending to the edge of the board.

AdorableStar posted:

A18 is the shape move for easy life, yes. Just imagine that double table shape.

o.m. 94 posted:

Here is the corrected image. Best of luck,

xopods posted:

Pander is not 15-16k. Capturing with N15 at move 24 is a move that should be automatic for a player that level.

You may be right that he could have beaten that opponent at 9 stones though. But I would say that guy is 28k-29k... so I'd put Pander at 20k.

AdorableStar posted:

So how does he time you out?

uranus posted:

have any of you done 'malkovitch' games? i'm thinking of trying one but am not sure how much i'll get out of it since most of my moves are made because 'it looks like a goodish spot'

AdorableStar posted:

I'm just saying that telling people not to go over pro games because they "can't understand them" is a lovely attitude to have.

xopods posted:

I'd assumed he was just responding to sarcasm with sarcasm, but yeah, I was working on a book at one point with help from James Sedgwick (6d amateur I ran into a lot at tournaments). I had also gotten He Xiaoren (a pro) to say she'd take a look at the draft when it was done, but eventually I realized I had to start doing something with my time that was going to make more than $0 so I kind of gave up.

You've inspired me to look back at what I've got though, Khel, and I realize that it's more than I thought... I had finished the first draft of the first two sections, which are actually about as much material as many books. I have no intention of finishing it and publishing it, but it would be a huge waste not to share what I've got.

Take it with a grain of salt because although I got feedback from James Sedgwick and incorporated it, I never did get He Xiaoren's help.

If you're wondering about the blank pages in the PDF's, it's because the idea was I would have all the text on right-hand pages and all the diagrams on the left, so there are blank pages for the left-hand pages in the bits where there is no diagram.

Here you go:

Chapter 1 - Wanting Too Little
Chapter 2 - Wanting Too Much