Wednesday, January 9, 2008

First handicap game as White.

Today, I played my first handicap game as White. It was pretty difficult. It was against Xinyu [17k], and Black had two stones. I would have won if not for missing the fact that a group in the lower left was not alive, but unsettled still. It was doubly frustrating because I am reading a couple books on Life and Death right now!

In any case, it was educational, and I learned a few things. The most important, of course, is to make sure a group is settled. It seems that at my level, this is the hardest hurdle to overcome. I feel as if I play tenuki, I will be told in analysis, "You should have stayed local and finished settling the fight," and if I play locally, I will be told, "Here you should have played tenuki." It is a difficult thing to balance, but hopefully I will pick up on it soon.

I've been busier now that school has started, but hope to meet up with Terri sometime soon to play or look over a game. Yesterday, I defeated a 15k by a slim margin, after having made a giant mistake.

Here is my first handicap game, from today.








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