Lunchtime 9x9 game with Jason

Great fun to have a work colleague playing Go. He's played a few times with his wife on their 19x19 board at home but didn't know about eyes, so those games must have been a little odd.

We played out a 9x9 game and explored the concepts of living with two eyes, atari, linking up and disconnecting groups etc. Great fun. Used my proper stones on a printout 9x9 from here

Bristol Go Club this week

Bob was kind enough to give me two teaching games, one even and one with 9 stones. Richard also offered some valuable advice about never leaving weak groups in favour of territory.

I lost a large group in the second game when I took my eye off the ball for (it seemed) a few seconds, but thought I was still leading in terms of territory, I had a long diagonal central section. But when the game was rearranged for scoring, it was 90 to 40 (or something) against me. Very surprising.

I then watched Paul A beat Paul C on 4 stones. Paul A plays very quickly 'without thinking'. You can too. You just need about 40 years of experience first.

6 members turned up this week.

Loss to DanielBR 12k (even)

Not only playing even, but as white, against a 12K. Okay then!

Move 10 maybe prefer Q6 to prevent two white groups being split in two
Move 12 prefer P7 to prevent the split
Move 18 achieves nothing but he must answer..
Move 20 too confident with too many cutting points
Move 30 missed the trap (see next turn)
Move 34 lower group all safe? Think again
Move 36 greed? over safety
Move 38 just invite the 2nd line trap
Move 40 prefer to save the one on the 2nd line
Move 44 prevents the atari on K4 but leaves the lower right group to die
Move 52 invites him in
Move 64 missed the atari (really?)
Move 66 presumably expected a forced reply with a cutting point repair to follow? Instead of replying, black attacked, forcing W to reply and leave the cutting points open
Move 78 drunk? The game was over by move 36

Awful.

Loss to Meic 18k on OGS (even game)

Like the first, my second completed game against Meic also ended in resignation, but it was a whole lot better than the first. The silly complete beginner mistakes are hopefully a thing of the past. The mistakes in the game are down to a) poor defence - too many cutting points and b) choosing areas too small to live in and getting squeezed.

Move 3 er..
Move 9 prefer a pincer?
Move 11 again prefer the pincer?
Move 17 prefer to connect at C12
Move 27 E12
Move 31 E14 = nice wall
Move 33 F15
Move 35 too many cutting points. Obviously only looking to capture the W group.
Move 57 any move anywhere on the board would be more useful than that. Look at the moyo on the right. Where's yours? Maybe the centre point would be reasonable. Just not L4.
Move 61 too far
Move 63 is this going to live on its own?
Move 73 make some space! O7?
Move 77 not obviously suicidal until you read ahead
Move 83 obviously suicidal
Move 183 necessary. allowing W to connect kills the E7 group (nowhere to live)
Move 185 necessary. sacrifice G7 group to ensure D6 group dies

Win against Julko 17k on OGS (9 stones handicap)

This game is my first earned win in the OGS Tianyuan 2009 Handicap Class tournament (I won an earlier one by timeout).

This game was largely by the numbers (as I understand them). Apart from weak play in the bottom right corner, I just played a containing game, content to allow W to settle on the edge leaving me with influence in the centre.

Move 34 is odd - inviting W to split.
Move 40 is questionable - can B succeed here?
Move 48 missed the atari
Move 50 invited double atari

Loss to LibertyBot (14k) on KGS

Haven't played robots much since the early days of learning Go, so I wondered whether I'd do better than the wholesale slaughter experienced back then.

I was given 3 handicap stones, and lost by 18.5 point - that's probably OK. It was chinese scoring, my first time, and I was a little confused, capturing his dead groups rather than leaving them dead.

Biggest mistake was thinking the ladder would work in my favour. It really really didn't.

Bristol Go Club is now weekly

With membership between 6-8 regulars, it has moved weekly now, which is great.

Had two games with Paul C (~6k), one a teaching game and one a blitz, which I've never played before. The teaching game was very instructive, concentrating on fuseki and what moves are good and why. I had a large framework and could have done well, but insisted on rescuing a single stone which let him build a wall and the game was lost. The blitz game was good, because my rushed moves in a normal game often lead to disaster, but playing the whole game at that speed gives you a hyper-concentration mode which lead to fewer disasters. I still did pretty poorly, winning just one local battle, but not seeing that it had nowhere to go, and couldn't make life. Another group was lost because I thought it could easily make life, but Paul played in a vital point that I didn't expect.

Then, Richard (4d), partner of Louise (~1d) who have moved from the Isle of Man to Bristol kindly offered some 9x9 games with me to help develop fighting skills. Firstly on 6 stones handicap, which I won easily, then we had 2 games on 5 stones, one of which I lost and one I won. In both of these games, I responded poorly to Richard's ko threats. I must ensure that I know what I want from a ko fight before engaging.