An encouraging game

During my lunch break today, I played a quick 13x13 game against Zero9090 (22k). I hope that I didn't keep him up since he's in Pusan, South Korea.


I won the game by 16.5 moku and Zero9090 said that I had improved. I very much respect his opinion and appreciate his kind assessment. It will take several 19x19 games on my part to see if I have truly earned his compliment.

When I asked him for this match, I consciously planned to follow some guidelines based on experience and what I had read. One of my readings suggested that beginners should experiment with a small set of rules in each game and examine the outcome.

In their small ways, I believe these self-set rules helped my game.

• Not let my opponent get ahead in securing his corners - I learned that in my 5.5 moku loss in a 19x19 game against Piro (30k?) on KGS yesterday. He had secured a large swathe of territory in the upper right corner and it was impossible for me to reduce it after the middle game.
  
• Make good shape - Actually, I still don't know what good shape is. But I learned a lot of bad shape and bad places to put your stones from my previous games. My intention was to avoid playing them again. I had read somewhere that a pro can usually defeat a kyu player just by playing good shape.
• Think quickly - But not play mindlessly as I oftentimes had done. This relates to Sorin Gherman's (6d) advice which I had reproduced in this post.
  
• Not make any empty triangles - Not make any stupid empty triangles. Not make any dang, stupid empty triangles.

Later in the day, I edited my information on Sensei's Library. I didn't know this was possible. Tamsin (1d) left me some gracious words and a lovely welcome.

I also discovered that KGS automatically archives your games in SGF and that they can be accessed at this link.