Day 16 - 2 games (42)

Even when I try to play fast my 19x19 games end up taking quite some time. That's why despite having a lot of free time last night I could only fit two games in. I could give blitz games a try, but my worry is that I'll just end up making the stupid mistakes I've been unlearning slowly.

The first game I played was another handicap game. I don't know what the right response to #2 is, maybe I should pincer from below instead, because I ended up feeling cut off from the centre and not long thereafter my handicap stone advantage seemed to have evaporated.

I also think I mishandled my invasion in the lower right, because I didn't get as much space in the corner as I needed, and white stopped me from breaking out into the centre or right hand side. Though I'm not sure exactly where I went wrong:

In the end I lost by 2.5 points - my closest game yet.

At the start of the second game I deliberately tried to play faster, so as to not make it a 40 minute affair. Less than 10 moves into the game I decided to start a fight, and because of my fast play I managed the impressive feats of missing (and getting caught in) two ladders in the same move; you don't see that every day. 30 moves in I had already lost 6-8 stones and I was almost ready to throw the towel in, but I decided that was too rude and kept playing instead.

I managed to take some territory in the top left corner, and eventually got a small break when white played this move:

He opted to save the two stones on the left, which let me break out into the centre (by reading out two ladders actually):

However, I screwed up by letting my top cutting group get disconnected and not realising it was dead soon enough. On the right side of the board I played better, and managed to take quite a lot of territory, but in the bottom right corner things didn't go as well as they should've. Move #119 might've been the problem (open triangle that accomplishes nothing). Playing at N3 would have been better I think.

White also made some mistakes, like this move, which took away one of his own liberties and let me capture three stones when he didn't connect:

In the end white won by 13.5 points, but that was an okay result considering how far behind I got in the opening.