Back to reviewing

I've just finished one of my other projects, and so I'm hoping to get back into Go-study, starting this game.  The game started out pretty bad for me, and I wasn't able to get momentum back, but there was definitely tricky stuff in the mid game. Overall, I spent too much time fighting and should have been looking for stability especially after the bad opening.

Lee Sedol's Giant Cross

This is a reposting from JustPlayGo.  Did you guys see this game with Lee Sedol vs Mok Jinseok in the second round of the Kuksu?  Move 62 is totally nuts -- a giant cross with four double diagonals in the center of the board!  I've never seen anything like that.  In any case, Lee destroys his opponent with some fantastic tactics.

Zombie Group

I played a game against a 1d today.  Epic fights emerged as usual. The most fascinating part for me was the zombie group (nominally dead at move 116) that eventually comes back alive and saves the day.

Josh and Physix: Turning the Tide

I played a game against Physix (Aaron) today.  There was an interesting position in the beginning.  Physix lost his corner, but he could have done better.  It's a messy position -- what's black's best move?

Josh vs Jeremy v.2

I played a game with Jeremy last night.  As can be expected from our games, there was a huge fight.  Jeremy eventually lost, but after some analysis, there were some ways that white could have escaped.

I felt like I had a difficult time getting points and eventually had to attack his group really aggressively.  If he had succeeded in saving his group, I would have been sunk.  Any suggestions how I could have avoided this?

Sneaky In-game Tsumego

I do quite a bit of life and death, and so it always surprises me how many life and death situations I miss in-game that would be much easier if taken out of context.  Here's one example from a game I won today:

A Success!

I have had a bad losing streak recently -- 6 losses in a row.  But I won game today!  I've been doing some life and death studying which I think helped.  I definitely made some big strategic miscalculations (and a joseki mistake) but my reading was much better.  I'd be really interested to hear what you guys have to say.

In typical Josh-fashion, I played a mediocre opening and then came back after some heavy fighting.

Hamete!

Since this website is called the Hamete Go Group, I thought it would be fitting to post some Hamete.

Hamete means 'trick move' or 'tap'.  Technically, we use the word hamete only to refer to trick moves that happen in opening positions -- i.e., they are well known and standard.  Trick moves are fascinating from a study standpoint because they always have obvious answers that turn out to be wrong.  Thus, studying trick moves is a way to train us to think beyond the obvious move, allowing us to probe deeper into the complexities of Go.

I recommend setting the position at the beginning of the trick move (in this case move 4) and thinking about the possibilities for a while.  Forgive the pedantry for a moment, but to paraphrase a Scientific American article, mastery is only achieved through effortful study.

Disclaimer: I got this trick move out of a Japanese Go book, much of which I don't understand. Fortunately, I can read the Kanji for good and bad.

The Curse of Bad Aji

I played a game today that started off pretty well and then went south pretty fast. I think my biggest mistakes were making weak shape, although ultimately, I lost the game due to some reading errors. Time for more life and death!

(Edit: New comments from gludion[3d])

Josh and Jeremy's Game: August 30th

Jeremy and I played this game last week on KGS.  I played a bad opening, but some mid-game fighting helped to close the gap.