NO ONE IS SMARTER THAN ME!

[inverarity]

Unfortunately, MFOG is still a lot smarter than me.

I am almost finished working my way through Kagayema's Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go. This is not a beginner's book. I have found it somewhat helpful, but I think I may be too early in my stage of development to benefit fully from it. I'm sure I will return to it once I've got more experience.

I've ordered a few more books. Need to learn more about fuseki and tesuji, and I would like to start learning joseki as well.

I continue to get most frustrated when I think I have built a pretty solid framework, and then the computer drops a stone into the middle of it and it all falls apart. And this is why I still mostly play against the computer, rather than human opponents, because when I get frustrated and angry at the computer, I can walk away (and also bail on the game), which is not acceptable when playing another person.

Yesterday's problem was: kill White.



tealterror0 suggested the following sequence:



But this leaves White still alive.

I would also point out that if Black makes the mistake of letting White get two eyes, White can do even better: there is no need to let Black encroach so far along the side:



So the damage is even greater; White can score 4 points instead of 2.

Kageyama-sensei would have no patience for such laziness and inattention! (Kageyama-sensei is always scolding the reader for not seeing ten or twenty moves ahead.)

I actually did guess what the right move for 28 is, because I've learned enough to recognize a key point when I see it:



However, I had trouble reading the whole thing out to the end, because it involves letting white capture the two black stones, then playing back in that eye again (where 30 is located, above). If White recaptures that stone, then Black plays to the right of 7, and the whole White group is dead. White can instead play to the right of 7 first, but that results in a ko fight. Unless White can muster some ko threats that are worth more than that entire corner, White is still dead.