Day 2 - 1 game (9), 24 kyu

Last night I watched two videos by In Sente, one about staying connected and one about basic shapes. I found both quite instructive and I tried to put some of his lessons to use in my only game of the day, by playing the one space jump (ikken tobi) in my opening. By move #6 it already looked, by my estimation, that I got the better deal out of this exchange, as my opponent was trapped on a smaller portion of the board. After I played E6 and later E4 I thought my shape was a bit awkward, and maybe I should have played differently from move #7 and on, but it still looked okay.

Move #33 was a big mistake and should have been H5 instead. I looked at both moves and concluded he would be trapped regardless, but I completely missed that G6 would force him to put me into atari that I couldn't escape from. I think the reason I played it was because I felt more comfortable pushing him towards the edge as there was less space there. I need to work on my reading in those kinds of situations. I've always been bad at visualizing things in my head, I cannot picture an image and focus on it; there are only brief flashes, and fleeting images (unlike music, which I can hear quite vividly). Perhaps this will hold me back in Go.

The game continued quite peacefully, we both secured our territories and at #47 I felt I had to diminish his space on the left side of the board. The situation from move #57 onward was somewhat beyond my ability to predict, and I played it out a dozen different ways after the game. White #58 was probably one of the worse moves he could have played, B2 or C1 would (I believe) have stopped my invasion. White passed at #65 and at this point I felt I had already won, so I also passed, but after the game I saw that I could easily have killed white's main group. This game bumped me up one rank to 24 kyu, but I suspect I'll get knocked down again tonight.

The scoring at the end confused me slightly.

 

I am not sure why I get A5 and why white gets A3, or how C1 belongs to my but B2 doesn't (similarly with J2 and J1, H1 & H2). Clearly I need to learn more about how games are scored.

Most important lesson:

-try to see if a forcing move will put one of your stones into atari!

links:

In Sente's beginner Go series