At US Go Congress I often heard repeated that as you get stronger the game just gets harder. Well tonight felt like a pretty good confirmation of that. This first game of the month was against the top player in league G (and I’m the bottom player). The game ended with my resignation. I made several misreads at the end, but that wasn’t the real story of the game - it seemed pretty clear to me that I had an inferior position and few options. Something had gone wrong much earlier in the game and I’m looking forward to the review to figure out where I went astray. I do suspect my formation on the right was unideal, my cut in the center was an overplay (since the surrounding positions were not in my favor), and I delayed doing something about the bottom far too long.

My opponent was kind enough to do a short review after the game and he focused on the opening moves. He pointed out some typical options against the Kobayashi. This is yet another opening I don’t really know anything about beyond the placement of the initial stones. In-seong has a video lecture on this of course and it’s now bumped to the top of my queue.

So more KGS games and more studying! I plan on going into the next round with at least a better understanding of the Kobayashi and eye for avoiding the conceptual mistakes I made in this game whatever they turn out to be.