At move 18 in a game I just lost, I am faced with this board position: Now, using the Clossi approach, I have to ask the first question: am I weak? and this is a very key point: the H3 stone is “light” but is it “weak”? If it is weak, we have 4 prioritized […]
Nothing screams I’m a punk more than somebody ganging up on one guy
Nothing screams I’m a punk more than somebody ganging up on one guy
Brutal Attacking Sequences
wallerdog vs thedeepself live At move 137 in this game we reach this position and AI revealed a simple but brutal attacking sequence. I will not reveal it, but you are welcome to find it!
The late 3-4 corner invasion
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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 […]
How do you decide which cutting point to attack?
I was just playing a game where my opponent left 5 cutting `points: I wasnt sure where to cut I wasnt sure what proverb to use to think about cutting so I just did some reading and here is where I was thinking: If I can cut at 3 in sente then I can follow […]
Cut Sorcery: 4 weak-SDK examples of when the cross-cut would’ve gained me some advantage.
Ignore my peep if you want to pay the price So I was playing this game and I played a peep in order to build the center: Black ignored me, so I made good on my threat to push through his group: Black protects and I surround: Black now thinks he is safe to roam […]
The Road to 5k Requires Seeing the Power of the Push-Cut
Not once, but TWICE IN THE SAME GAME could I have taken a commanding lead if I had only studied the position and considered the push cut. What the hay is a push cut? A push-cut occurs when you perform a two move sequence consisting of a push followed by a cut. let’s break it […]
A Pattern Re-Emerges – the 2-on-2 stone formation
Not even 4 days ago I played a game and after studying it in katago, I came to move 73 and was so astonished at the pure savagery that could occur in an innocent position that I posted the position on reddit. I am going to highlight what I call “the 2-on-2 stone formation’: So, […]