It’s Dangerous To Go Alone – 1

I’ve made a resolution to try to play a full live game every night if possible, in addition to my ongoing correspondence games.  I plan to do a small write-up about each game as sort of a mini-review.  You may click on the image of the completed game to be taken to the game on OGS.

Match 1 – 13×13 board vs. 21kyu player – won by resignation

I started this match with 2 handicap stones.  The first 10 moves seemed to be pretty straightforward, with both of us pretty much just putting down stones to outline our areas of territory.  White put in a solid claim to the top left corner, while I got a good hold on the bottom and top right.  A bunch of whites movies were closer to the center on the 5th line which I understand isn’t a great idea for early game.

Move 11, white invaded my area in the top right and I responded, trapping several of his stones in a ladder.  By move 40 I seemed to have defeated the invasion although I’m not sure how secure my area is, something I really need to work on.

With move 41, white attached to one of my stones in the bottom right and we skirmished again, with my trapping most of the stones he attacked with.  At move 58 I made a serious mistake: I played to keep him from connecting and completely missed an atari that would’ve let him capture two of my stones.  At this point however, white resigned and I won.

Match 2 – 19×19 board vs. 20kyu player – lost by resignation

I was originally going to skip writing about this game because it was so terrible I’m embarrassed.   I started with a generous 4 handicap stones which should’ve given me a pretty decent starting advantage, and I proceeded to blow it.  Once again I let myself get sucked into fighting, and gave my opponent two stones at move 27.  That wasn’t enough for me though, so I gave him another seven stones at just 14 moves later.  At move 145, I resigned.

When a player approaches me, my first instinct is always to try to block and/or capture them.  I still don’t entirely understand how to respond properly without getting into an immediate fight that I’m almost guaranteed to lose.  This game is a pretty good example of everything that’s wrong with the way I’ve been playing.

Match 3 – 19×19 board vs. 16kyu player – won by resignation

  This is the strangest game I’ve played.  I started with a very large handicap of 8 stones.  White’s first move was to play at tengen (the center of the board) and as I strengthened my claim around the outside, he played a good number of stones in the center of the board.  I feel I played pretty badly, and he seemed to be able to attack and take the corners away from me pretty quickly.

I quickly became discouraged in this game as many of my attempts at living were thwarted, and did what I could to take territory the bottom, right side, and top.  Without warning, my opponent resigned at move 219.  There was no communication during the entire game, and I have no idea why he quit the game.

Match 4 – 9×9 board vs. 25kyu player – won by 7.5 points

  I decided to do a quick 9×9 and found myself playing with a brand new 25 kyu player.  I made several really stupid mistakes, move 18 set myself up to be punished pretty severely and almost lost me the game.  I got trapped into losing 2 stones at move 25 and stupidly lost another one immediately by not paying attention to what I was doing.

My opponent’s play at move 35 screwed me over in the corner, my fault for not having strong connections along my wall, so I lost another 4 stones down there, plus another stone up toward the top when I inexplicably made another awful decision.  At that point the game was more or less over; my opponent made a couple plays in my territory but was unable to live.  It ended up being a very close game but I did win with 7.5 points, including a komi of 5.5.