Category: Commentaries

Thursday Go Tygem: Game 01

Introduction

Welcome to my new Thursday Go Tygem series! This series is inspired by fellow go blogger Eyecatcher’s WBaduk Challenge series where he posts the games from WBaduk to keep himself disciplined and force himself to review his games from there as well. As you might have guessed from the title of this series, the games featured on here will solely be from Tygem.

I’m sure some of you are wondering though, “What’s the difference between this and Monday Go Meditation?”

  1. Higher Level Commentaries - Instead of being extremely detailed with every move, this series focuses on higher level commentary that highlights big points and any key aspects of how I thought the game went. In addition, it will abstain from any detailed explanation regarding variations in order to save on time and effort. By doing this, I am hoping that this will help speed up my process (since reviewing all my games via Monday Go Meditation is practically impossible).
  2. Exclusively Dan Level Opponents - The unique kicker to this entire series is that it will consist entirely of me playing dan players on Tygem. As some of you might remember, frozensoul once gave me the challenge to exclusively play dan players on Tygem in order to get stronger. Well, your wish is granted sensei. This series is the start of me embarking on that journey.
    And since this is a new series, it would be great if you could leave some feedback below to let me know whether or not I should continue with this series or if there are things I should do to improve it! Here we go!

Game Summary

no,Category,Good,Bad
1,Opening,Moves 8-10: Ignoring White’s pincer to make my own enclosure and then diving in the corner felt like good timing overall.,Move 11: I messed up the lower left joseki due to carelessness.
2,Middle Game,Move 45-49: I was really proud of this sequence since I could break up White’s area while counter attacking at the same time., Move 56: I feel I may have mishandled this crosscut fight and gave away too much to White as a result.
3,Fighting,Move 158-160: I was proud of myself for not backing away from the ko fight., Nothing bad as far as I can tell.
4,Endgame,My endgame felt average this game. Nothing special.,Move 134: Letting White get this hane was really painful.
5,Overall Reading,Overall I think I did alright. Nothing I’m particularly proud of though., Move 100: Didn’t see that coming!

WGW 39: Gu Li vs Lee Sedol - Jubango Game 4 Amateur Review

Weekly Go Wednesday: Issue #39

Credit to GoGameGuru

For Game 4 of this epic jubango between Lee Sedol (9P) and Gu Li (9P), with the current record being 2-1 in Lee Sedol’s favor, everyone sat in anticipation as they waited to see if Gu Li would be able to even up the record! With Gu Li’s record against Lee Sedol as of late though, many fans were certainly feeling that Gu Li had a great chance to win this game.

I am happy to say that today’s review is forged from the combined efforts of myself and frozensoul (5d) once again! Though I didn’t make this explicitly clear before, please feel free to direct any questions to him on KGS or even leave a comment below for him and he’ll be sure to answer. Hope that you enjoy our game review and let us know if there’s anything we can do to improve it for you!

For more advanced reviews, be sure to keep an eye out on World Go Online and GoGameGuru since I’m sure they will have their own in the near future.

Monday Go Meditation: Game 53

For this week's meditation, we really get to see a very popular joseki choice (i.e., small knight dive after one space low approach to the star point) get demolished (globally). Though it is certainly still an option in certain fuseki, it has fallen out of favor with me and I don't really see it as a viable move anymore in today's metagame because it gives your opponent the opportunity to choose what's best for him: (1) Take corner? (2) Take side? (3) Tenuki. Not a pleasant feeling at all...

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WGW 36: Gu Li vs Lee Sedol - Jubango Game 3 Amateur Review

Weekly Go Wednesday: Issue #36

Credit to GoGameGuru

For Game 3 of the epic jubango between Lee Sedol (9P) and Gu Li (9P), we have arrived at a crucial point. Lee Sedol is already 2-0 (Game 1 and Game 2) and there is concern that the jubango will end earlier than desired. After all, everyone wants to see all 10 games. However, the rules of the jubango is that the first to six victories win. As a result, for this game, even Lee Sedol fans were rooting for Gu Li to turn the tide so that we could see more games.

For those who don’t keep up with the professional scene, Gu Li had managed to beat Lee Sedol in two other tournament matches prior to this game, so even though there was concern that there would be too much pressure on Gu Li, people had high hopes that Gu Li would be able to make a comeback this game.

As with the previous reviews (Game 1 and Game 2), this review continues to be geared towards kyu players who struggle with the advanced analysis and discussion that normally occurs between dan and professional level players. There is commentary for every move so that hopefully you won’t ever feel lost. In addition, I am happy to announce that frozensoul (5d) has joined forces with me again for this game review. Many thanks goes out to him for providing a number of the insights you’ll see throughout the review.

Just like before, please let me know if you notice anything or have any suggestions that I can do to improve the review. I look forward to getting your feedback on this game review. Hope you enjoy it and learn a thing or two through it!

For more advanced reviews, be sure to keep an eye out on World Go Online and GoGameGuru since I’m sure they will have their own in the near future.

Update: Many thanks to Anders for letting me know that there were some typos in the review. I’ve gone through the SGF and updated it to hopefully eliminate them all and make sure everything is labelled properly. Let me know if I missed anything!

Monday Go Meditation: Game 50

This week's game definitely goes down as the craziest game that I've ever shown on this series to date. It was one that I got to play with fellow go blogger Eyecatcher. This game is practically anything but normal. And one of the best things about the resulting game is one that was inspired by Hikaru no Go (Manga).  For a little fun trivia for all those Hikaru No Go fans who have read the manga, after you've seen the second move, do you know which game I'm referring to? (The answer is in the game record).

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Monday Go Meditation: Game 49

For this week's meditation, I will start by prefacing the fact that before I started playing this game, I noticed my opponent was German. Based on my experience thus far, there are three groups of players that have been consistently aggressive and challenged my reading abilities constantly: Russians, Koreans, and Germans. This is by no means a bad thing, but it certainly made me a tad nervous. And just as I guessed, I ended up with another bloody game on my hands. It's starting to make me think there is a trend in my games... Enjoy!

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Monday Go Meditation: Game 48

For this week's go meditation, there are only two words that would aptly describe the violence in this game: bloodshed everywhere... Although this may look odd since my opponent is 2k and I'm 4k, this is around the time I got promoted to 3k on KGS. So in reality it's a one stone difference between us and the fact is that we have had a long standing history of having violent games. Be sure to grab your popcorn as you watch the violence unfold on the board. Enjoy.

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