I had two horribly disappointing games today on KGS where I didn’t read far enough at all and focused way too much on influence with weak groups (versus a 9kyu, I was bound to get punished). I lost by 40 and then 20, and got pushed down to 11kyu again because of it since I haven’t played all that many games yet to stabilize my rank. I was feeling really bad about how I played, and started reading a book called ‘Shape Up’ to learn some new things and get my confidence back.

A few hours later… This game took place only minutes ago on KGS, versus an 11kyu in an even match. I usually really dislike playing white, since black gets sente (initiative) to start the game off, and I always feel like I’m on the receiving end in the opening (not quite true realistically, but that’s how I feel)- so yeah, I didn’t exactly go into this with a great feeling. I thought about it, and felt like the key to my losses was being too focused on influence and not enough on ‘strength’, so this time I turned all of my attention into making really strong groups that would be difficult to attack. Well, that was my intention anyways, but as it turns out I only got to make ONE strong group in the opening, because the bastard just kept attacking it (if you can call that attacking). While pincering his weak stones between one space jumps and my strong upper right group, I made wicked influence in the process of destroying his eye-space and threatening to cut him off from life entirely… but then he kept it up anyways and didn’t tenuki (ignore the local area and play elsewhere) to areas where I had less strength. Just to show him the error of his ways, I didn’t let up until he was entirely sealed in.

I made two obvious mistakes in this game, one being a life/death problem, but thankfully my opponent misplayed as well and allowed me to form two eyes anyways- destroying all of his prospects for territory in the middle of the board. After that, I got to play all of the big moves in sente, and he was on the receiving end / defensive for almost the entirety of the second half.

The result? He resigns, though he should’ve resigned long before the board you see here. I win by roughly 120 points! That’s even assuming his small black group on the left actually lives.

Talk about destruction >_< I have my confidence back now, and I regained a 10kyu rank, though it certainly feels like I should be 8 or 9kyu after this. Maybe if he’d played through yose and the full score had been tallied by the server, I would’ve jumped up further than 1 rank, but I’m not sure. All I can say is DAMN.