A full game of Go with beginner-friendly commentary

[edeholland]

Adventures of a noob.

I wanna ask questions about me playing against a bad bot and still losing. Specifically, this game: https://online-go.com/game/19959288.

We played a few opening moves. As white I tried to control a lot of edges while black is trying to have an unbreakable position in the top of the board.

Black tried to invade me in the left. A mistake I often make (at least, I feel like I make that mistake), is using too many stones to defend against an invasion. If you have to use the same amount of stones to defend as he has to attack, I feel like the one invading comes out on top.

So what do I do next? C5 to cut off his stone and improve my defence? C3 or C9 to surround his stones? Or place somewhere else on the board because the treat is not that big?

Pls halp @Goodspeed

[edeholland]

In a fork of this game I went for C5. He responded with B5. I responded with D5 (obviously, C5 was in atari) and he with C3. What's next? Is his treat still real?

[Goodspeed]

Adventures of a noob.

I wanna ask questions about me playing against a bad bot and still losing. Specifically, this game: https://online-go.com/game/19959288.

We played a few opening moves. As white I tried to control a lot of edges while black is trying to have an unbreakable position in the top of the board.

Black tried to invade me in the left. A mistake I often make (at least, I feel like I make that mistake), is using too many stones to defend against an invasion. If you have to use the same amount of stones to defend as he has to attack, I feel like the one invading comes out on top.

So what do I do next? C5 to cut off his stone and improve my defence? C3 or C9 to surround his stones? Or place somewhere else on the board because the treat is not that big?

Pls halp @Goodspeed

Looks like a good result for white. C3 should probably be next. Black gets some territory on the side, but he is confined and he doesn't get the corner. You're building something big in the lower center, so you should have good compensation.
If C6 was their first invasion move and you had D4 and D10 on the board, another option was C5 to start off. That takes away space for him to make a living group and secures your corner, which is worth a lot of points. He does break into your lower center potential then though, so the result is probably about even.

[edeholland]

So the game continued for a bit. I have a question about the following board state. What should I do on the right side, bottom right corner and bottom side? Is the right side already mine or do I need to place on P6 first? What do I need to do to ensure control of the bottom right corner and bottom side? Do I even want to invest stones into those territories?

[Goodspeed]

In a fork of this game I went for C5. He responded with B5. I responded with D5 (obviously, C5 was in atari) and he with C3. What's next? Is his treat still real?

I would probably play D3 without much thought here.
C9, O3, R6, R13, F17 are all big moves too.

His only threat at this point is reducing your bottom center potential by turning at D3 or jumping straight to E2

[Goodspeed]

What should I do on the right side,

The middle right around S9 is black territory. At most you can reduce it with moves like T5 or T13 but those are endgame, there are much bigger moves still to play.

bottom right corner and bottom side? What do I need to do to ensure control of the bottom right corner and bottom side? Do I even want to invest stones into those territories?

The bottom right is still unsettled, and playing your next move there is good because black has to respond. If you play O2 for example, black has to respond or he loses his N2 group AND his K2 group. Actually, you can kill that group as is but how to do this is a little above your level. I can review the game afterwards and put the killing variation in there. More simply, you can force black to spend moves to kill your M1 group, which is already dead anyway, while securing the border of your bottom right territory:



Black can still reduce with O1 but your territory is much more solid than it was. Now, you simply play elsewhere. An important concept in Go is that if you play moves that help you AND force a response out of your opponent, you don't really lose anything (except a ko threat, but don't worry about that yet) by playing them.
If black doesn't respond, it's disaster for him:



He not only loses the 4 stones, but the ones marked X are also dead now.

Is the right side already mine or do I need to place on P6 first?

You mean the center right, left of your P9 stones? That's not quite yours because black can still reduce it by using his L11 stone effectively, but it seems likely you'll get some solid territory out of all the influence you have there. P6 is not a move. Black can't play there anyway, because you simply kill him. (white O6, black P7, white O7 etc)
A move like L9 would probably be good there. It ensures black's N5 group isn't going anywhere and it blocks entry to your potential territory from black's L11 stone.

[Goodspeed]

@edeholland https://online-go.com/review/419995

[Jam]

Are you still playing? @kami_ryu

[kami_ryu]

-- deleted post --

[Goodspeed]

Bump @Jam @edeholland @kami_ryu @[TLDT]Amsterda
Are any of you playing?

[Jam]

I'll get back into it I got off track from thesis stuff.

[fightinfrenchman]

Bump @Jam @edeholland @kami_ryu @[TLDT]Amsterda
Are any of you playing?

I've been busy looking at Yu-Gi-Oh cards but I'm going to get into it once @evilcheadar and I get bored with Battleship

[kami_ryu]

-- deleted post --

[[TLDT]Amsterda]

Not a lot but sometimes.

[Goodspeed]

I'll get back into it I got off track from thesis stuff.

What's your thesis on?

[Jam]

I'll get back into it I got off track from thesis stuff.

What's your thesis on?

.

[fightinfrenchman]

I'll get back into it I got off track from thesis stuff.

What's your thesis on?

Protein chemistry

You should have said your thesis was on Go

[Jam]

Show hidden quotes

I'll get back into it I got off track from thesis stuff.

What's your thesis on?

Protein chemistry

You should have said your thesis was on Go

I programmed the successor to AlphaGo