I was reviewing one of my games where my opponent played a lot of 2nd line stones during the middle game. But the main thing I want to focus on here is how to live in opponent territory starting with this position: White has invaded Black and started a contact fight. Black has 4 local responses to White: Let’s dont […]
The late 3-4 corner invasion
Bruce Wilcox style analysis of 1k versus 8k barn burner
The game that will be reviewed from the standpoint of Bruce Wilcox’s “Contact Fights” and Sector Fights is this – https://online-go.com/game/50328938 It was a game between me and the Twitch Streamer BadukScholars. An awkward position in terms of contact and sectors Black is within the enemy sector… breaking the sector line is a good idea because the group is not […]
Massive kills: Notes from the Homicide Files
Remove base, reduce eyespace (to a Bulky 5), play the vital point It was a back-and-forth affair with eric128 until I set my sights on the group in the lower left: It looks like a fairly large group. Didnt look possible to kill. But the clossi approach has a clear set of steps to deal with a weak group – […]
A wild ride with TigeEriCHan: Game Review (6k vs 7k)
I just finished a wild game versus TigeEriCHan… you know with a name like that, you are in for a ride. How to handle this invasion by the Tiger?! I chose the wrong cutting point at move 84 At move 106 Opponent had 1 good threat, I really had more: Have you ever had thickness you wanted to use? Well […]
Wicked Fighting for the Aspiring 6k
I played a game against Lord Spoon who attends my Twitch channel. It was a good correspondence game with several places where each side could’ve played a single decisive stone to wreck an opponent group. If you can recognize the brutal play in each of these situations, you will be much further ahead in your go career: The most wicked […]
A single White cut in a sea of black…
Who has the guts to cut into this White position at ‘1’ ? I certainly saw the cut while I was playing this game, but my ‘A’ group was weak and I figured that Black would simply chase my cutting stone towards ‘A’ and then kill about ‘A’ and my cutting stone. How in the world does one develop the […]
Stay awake on the hane-connect or you may pay the price…
Not even a month had passed since mi3chaels said: any time you have multiple chains of stones in succession with <4 liberties on each chain between possible cutting points, any strong player is going to be looking for ways to exploit that, and both the hane and the double hane are standard ways to do that. mi3chaels I was reviewing […]
The Edge Crush in Baduk
In his “Go Dojo” software Bruce Wilcox refers to this shape as an edge-crush: a third-line stone surrounded with the shape White has here is a sure kill however… the crushing stones must have enough liberties during the ensuing fight If the White stones cannot handle Black’s efforts to fight back then the edge-crush does not work. We will discuss […]
I’m wondering if a dan-level player would play H12 at this position with confidence
I was reviewing a game that I lost as part of a huge losing streak I happen to be on at the moment: I have plummeted from 7k to 9k. In the game, I was playing Black and I came to the following position which shows a hane that looked very dubious to me: Several moves prior, I noticed that […]
“ALL professionals know better: in … Middle Game, territory is not important, but strength and weakness of groups [is]”. A review of my game today.
The following quote is very relevant to the game I just lost: In ancient China, people were not scoring territory at all, but instead just the stones on the board. So originally, Go was about “gaining life for as many stones as possible” instead of territory. Building a territory – i.e. an area where no opponent’s stones are able to live – […]