Hello Steeamians !
Today is a day where I review my Go game, here is one that I played today.
My main objective when I started playing Go was to be a single digit kyu player, in other word, become 9 kyu. After nearly two years of playing, I managed to do it but I’m not stopping there, now I look above at the 5 kyu rank which is pretty symbolic too. Wish me good luck !
I hope you'll enjoy this game !
Just know that this game is simply amazing ! If you like strategy game like chess, it's even a better game, simpler but deeper.
I made a post with the basic rules, you can find it here.
So I really encourage you to check out the game and here are more links that could help :
A site where you can easily play.
An amazing Youtube channel
Some playlists for beginner (FR)
A playlist for beginner (EN)
A post about Go vocabulary
Now, back to the game !
I played as black against a Japanese 9 kyu+ opponent. I started with my favorite opening against a balanced hoshi followed with a komoku.
I found his first moves O16 to O12 quite strange because I simply followed him and by so making a great and solid territory on the right side. I traded it against influence for him but I didn’t think that was important at that moment. My next move was D5 in order to approach his corner high, aiming for influence.
After a great sequence for me I think, I played an extension move L4 which also breaks his wall influence on the left. I think it’s a great sequence for me because he had a bad shape near E4, the empty triangle.
The following moves were about the upper left corner where I enclosed him. However, there was a potential cut between my group and he took it, a fight is about to happen.
Here is the result of it, I captured his cutting stones near E12 and he gained a lot of influence. Nevertheless, you can see that there is now a cut for him at G9, it was still too early to take it for me but that time will come.
My next move was to take some points with Q5, closing my corner. Then, he played N4 and we both ran to the center. Because I had some stones in the middle, the cut became interesting. He had, at that moment, two weak groups to protect.
Finally, I captured the left side and connected both of my groups near D10 and C4. I was quite happy with that result but still a bit worried because of my stones in the middle. I was afraid that he cut them out.
Then, he read better than me and connected his groups by passing under my stones near L3. You can see that there is nothing I can do to save them, he is well connected. Instead of just connecting my middle group which I thought would be a slow move, I attacked his group near G11 with my move J14, threatening to enclose it.
He did pretty well because my plan failed and he connected quite easily. However, I managed to cut him with O13 but it wasn’t that important.
After some exchanges in the middle and his successful corner invasion, I played a reduction move H4 which abused of his lack of liberties for the J4 group.
In fact, it worked pretty well because I managed to capture three white stones at D2. The next move M15 attacked a little his upper group. At this point, it was only endgame moves so I played the one he had to respond in order to keep the initiative !
After some exchanges for the life of his group, he messed up and didn’t see the trick move M17. After his response N16 to save his stone, I would have played H17 to put a big part of his group in atari ! As he couldn’t do anything to save it, he resigned.
I hope you enjoyed this little game review, tell me in the comment what do you think about this content.
Here is my profile page on OGS, add me as a friend and we'll do a game !
Check out another of my Go review here
See you tomorrow !