The best way to learn how to play Go is to start playing games with people. Board size 9x9 is a good start. After som practice runs against weak computer bots, I thought I was ready to play other people in 9x9. By doing this, I've learned one important thing about my play: apparently I don't put my mind into the game. I play instinctively without any good instincts. I still can't read the board very well and I can't count points. I thought I knew the rules about the game, but I still know nothing about the endgame.
The following game is between chibisai [5k] and myself, Ekorren [20k]. We agreed to an even game even though my opponent is much more skilled and experienced. She would go easy on me though. We discussed the game in detail afterwards and I could feel that I learned a lot from it. I want to thank her for that. I played black and she was white.
Many of my comments below are details I learned during the review after the game. I'm far from experienced enough to review my own games rationally. I'm sure anyone with more than a week of Go experience would chuckle mocklingly at my horrible play in the game below, but keep in mind that it's one of my first games ever played. I would very much appreciate if you would write a comment to this post, showing me faults in my review as well as giving me feedback on how to improve my game.
The game started out moderately, I think. As a rookie, I was more focused on the center play of the board than the corners. It was in a later game I learned that the corners should be the focus points. Apart from the centralized play, I was told after the game that my most important mistake in this opening game is by placing my stone in F6. instead of F5. The idea I had was to prevent my opponent from progressing upwards and instead I opened up for a cut which would later let her connect her right and left parts of the board. I still fall for these mistakes.
As the game continued, I managed to let her cut at F3. She did an atari with H3 and I had to respond with G2 since I couldn't find a way to retaliate at that point. I'm still too inexperienced to read further into how I could have prevented this situation. Write a comment if you have any tips. My last move on F1 should have been avoided to retaliate instead. Possibly on C4? I also believe I was too focused on defending when I could have put a stone on the upper left starpoint and gotten more control of the upper territory.
I was lucky to play against someone who was cautious and didn't want to overwhelm me, because this is a part of the game where I make plenty of mistakes and basically lose. My bottom corner has been cut off from the top board. I have a cut to the center board and I have enough room to get some territory there, but I chose to do some desperate attempts to block my opponent. It was poorly played and I basically gave her the bottom left corner for herself. After she played E2, I should have played C4 instead of B4. She would have responded with B3 and I would then play B4. I should also have connected on E6 at some point.My biggest mistake was placing D6 after she placed E6 to atari because I didn't see that she had atari on me at the same time. However, since she is a much better player than I am, she ignored her atari and let me keep the center and instead let me capture her stone at E6. In a real game, she would have placed D5 and captured the five center stones. This would have forced me to resign. But since this was basically a tutoring game to help me feel more comfortable with the game, she put her stone at B3 instead of taking the center. I captured, she placed her stone at H7, opening up for new attacks. It's possible that attacking her last stone from H8 would have been my best option if I wanted any chances of evening out the scores. No matter what I do at this point I would still lose the game, but we continued further to give me some more battle training.
While trying to learn how to block enemy movement and to defend my own territory, I did about every move wrong. The game was already lost but we kept going so that I could practice this aspect of the game. The game record to the left is a mess - it doesn't take a genius to see that. I can try to justify this by pointing out that I'm a rookie, but some people would probably still question my sanity for showing this game to the public. However, this blog is not for showing off. This is to help me learn.The first questionable move among those recorded on this picture is the one at H6. If I wanted to assault H7, I should have done so from H8. Since this move was stupid anyway, I ignored the atari and retaliated at A5 (though this pretty much helped my opponent to spread upwards). What I could have done after H5 instead of the atari on A5 is to atari on B2. This would have forced white to respond either at C2 (or at A4 which would have captured my stone at B4). If white would have responded with the capture, I could go C2, letting white capture my stone at A3 and then atari at D1. White's entire bottom center would have been killed and I could have won the game. I wouldn't see something like that though, and I wouldn't have found that path if my opponent hadn't told me after the game.
Going back to the atari at A5, everything would have been better than that. Atari from B6 would have been much better because then I would have the upper hand of the top left territory.
This is the complete game and as you can see, it was a total loss. I think there was nothing else I could do at this point to reduce my opponent's territory. I learned a lot during the game though and I am slowly becoming better.The main point why I decided to show this game is because I want some feedback on how I can improve the game. Is it true that I play too defensively? How should I do to better block my opponent's progression? All tips are helpful. I also posted this game because it was one of my first games ever played and I know that I can look back at it in a year or two with a smile.
