Day 17 - 1 game (43)

It happened again. I played black and decided to invade white's 4-4 opening because that's what I usually do. I decided to deviate from the joseki (the only one I know hah):

I'm guessing there's a reliable way to punish this that white didn't find; instead we got into a fight, which turned out to be a lot of fun. By move 30 I was thinking I could kill white's four "L-shape" stones on the right side. Move #37 was probably a mistake, since it let white capture two stones, but I didn't want him crawling too far on the second line and making eyes. Extending once more might have been correct though.

White didn't realise that he wasn't yet alive, and eventually I got to play this stone:

Now it looks like white is dead. With move #56 however, I misread it as my group being in atari, and I chose to extend. Giving white life in the process. It wasn't over yet though, and by playing out a pointless ladder white weakened his group (I actually read out the ladder because I still thought my group was threatened hah):

I sacrificed a few stones getting there, but I wasn't too worried about it. At this point I think it is dead for certain, though it took a few more moves for white to admit that.

After this I started securing the top side, while white took territory in the middle. I invaded white's other corner and made a few more points. Move #121 was pointless in hindsight, but I thought better safe than sorry. Now there was one interesting thing that happened in this game, and that was my first Ko. I will admit that it was caused by my inattentiveness rather than my reading. I missed this atari, played C14 and white captured. When I tried to recapture the stone OGS told me that it was an illegal Ko move.

To my credit, I did see that I could atari at B13, and this would be a good exchange for me. In hindsight C14 was kind of a Ko threat (maybe not in the strictest sense of the word, since the Ko hadn't started yet), even though neither I nor my opponent realised it. Since white ignored it I got to capture his three stones and even win the Ko itself. At this point the game was pretty much over, but white decided to try one last thing, to save his large group on the right side:

I was taken aback by this move, but eventually responded with #2. Now, this was not the optimal move, it would have been better to play at S11, but I thought both would let me live there. White then played this:

Here I had to stop and think once again. I thought that if white captures my stone then he gets a second eye and lives. Well, he doesn't. The marked spot is where I was intending to play, but S11 would again have worked fine. What happened though was that I once again ran out of time in a game that I had won. Yay!

I don't have time for any more games, but this screw up soured me enough that I don't want to play more tonight anyway. I also decided that I should just ignore my rank, because the rank only serves to amplify the frustration of moments like these.