The Divine Move (Game of Go series) #17

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 this game as black against an 8 kyu Bulgarian opponent. You know that when I’m black I always do the same opening, the Chinese.

After a classic joseki in the upper right corner, I approached his corner with a high move, aiming at influence !

Actually, it ended up better than I expected because he crawled on the first line for a while as you can see near B7. So I was happy with the result especially that it weakened his pincer stone D8. I think that’s a bad way to play for white, even if he has a kinda big corner, he also has two weak stones and I have a huge wall. Then, he approached my bottom corner.

After a sequence, I took advantage of his H3 weak stone to attack him a little, I would be ok if we both run to the middle.

However, he ignored it and removed some of my liberties instead. As you can see, I have now a problem with the R6 cut followed by R3. Still, I wasn’t worried about that because I could give him two stones and take back the initiative if he does that.

Despite that, he launched the sequence, took two white stones while I made two moves elsewhere in the board, C14 then M16. It was a really great exchange for black because white gained about 6 points against two big moves.

We did a joseki near M16 and C14, after that, I decided to cut him with E16.

Unfortunately, I kinda messed up the reading and lost basically all my stones there. So I played elsewhere a big move to try to compensate that loss.

Here comes the strangest part of the game I think. With the following move, he tried to live starting from his H3 stone. I think it’s strange because it’s an all-in, if he managed to live it’s ok but still, he gives me a lot. And if he dies, well that’s the game. I think he should just try to reduce me instead, it’s less risky and he’s not that much behind.

Since he tried to live in a black ocean, it was pretty hard and he didn’t succeed. He resigned after that but I encourage you to take a look if he lived. Look at the big wall I have now near J9, you can see that I nearly have points near M11. So even if he lived, he would have given me a lot.

I find that scoreboard interesting so you can have an idea of the score !

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 !