Finishing A Pro Game

  Difficulty: Beginner   Keywords: MiddleGame

I think this idea should be revived. I'll post a new position at Finishing a Pro Game 2. -- Dansc


This is a cool idea; too bad it seems to have been neglected. I added this comment just to bring this page to attention again.

-- Björn (10k KGS) (who cannot spell his name -- proper HTML for the "umlaut" in my name is "ö", but i don't know how to tell wiki that it's plain html)


I was wondering what the result would be if a group of players would decide on a particular professional game and attempt to complete it from a certain move onwards and then compare results.

Given that the most difficult and influencing stage of a game is the opening, I would have thought that given a good starting point it would be a nice challenge to see how well we would do. We could compare by posting the game records here.

What do you think, and would you take part?

-- OneEye

Just go ahead and add a position from a pro game here. We'll see how it turns out :o) -- Arno


Here goes:

[Diagram]

Black to move next

Please complete this game with a friend and post a link to the record (and your grade) here. Also, if you have the time, some commentary would be great. If you do not have webspace where to keep the sgf file, add the information to this page mail it to me and I will link it in for you. (Arno, is there a space on Sensei for such records? Peoples website tend to vanish sometimes)

My email address is 1i@esperi.demon.co.uk

I will post the complete record of the game in a couple of weeks (19th July 2001) and also the source where I obtained it from.


[Diagram]

Picking up the glove

Very interesting exercise (for me). In such a position, I could not resist the temptation to start a moyo. Black 1, the move I would probably play, at the same time looks amateurish, single-purpose, lukewarm. Maybe locally a or b are better, b showing a weakness though, and perhaps this isn't at all the area to play.

A play around c seems even more single-purposed though: the three-space extension below needs more reinforcement than the two-point extension at the top.

-- Dieter Verhofstadt (EGF 1k)


Just concerning the first entry - I used to think that the most difficult part of the game is chuban - middle game, am I right? There aren't so many books around about chuban as there are about fuseki, for example, and this indicates that fuseki is easier - one can learn much about it from a book. -- Bizonbyk (24k KGS)

Not to digress too far, but chuban is usually fighting (at least in my poor games); and how well you do in the fighting is directly related to how well you placed your stones in the fuseki. It's easy to get a stone into the right area but have it turn out to be useless or even harmful because it was one line from the "ideal" spot. So, chuban is hard, but if you're like most people, you'll soon regard fuseki (planning for chuban) as even harder. This is really why there are more English books about fuseki -- it's more mysterious (therefore, more people seek to learn it from books; and it's harder to contradict the author). -- TakeNGive (11k)


I'd like to offer the opinion that this first offering is a little too ambitious. This isn't really "finishing" a pro game - the game is no where near finished! :-) To finish this game we would have to post a few reasonable guesses about what happened next followed by another 200 plays worth of typical amateur blundering about (we might as well call it on-going game 3 then ;-)

I suggest that "finishing a pro game" should start rather nearer the finish - about early yose. That way we can't stray too far away from reality! -- Dave Sigaty

As I understand it, the point is to stray from reality. It's not so much an exercise in that form, more a curiosity. Finish the game and post the result here. It doesn't have to be perfect! -- Anselm

[Diagram]

Black to move next

bud1027 hm...how about this? it seem to me that this moves are more flexible and wider framework for black's thickness...

[Diagram]

ThaddeusOlczyk: What about B1, expanding the moyo and threatening 'a' at the same time.

[Diagram]

unkx80: B1 seems to invite W2, separating B1 from the rest of the Black stones. Is it good?

[Diagram]

Broege's choice

Broege?: I would go for B1 - it presses White on the right side as it is places exactly on the line separating White's right from Black's top. Moreover, I seem to remember a very similar position is one of Takemiya's games - isn't it by any chance one of his games?

zinger: This area of the board also seems interesting, but I would play B1 at B3. The reasoning is tewari: if B1 at B3, then W2, B3 should be at a, not B1. Overall though, I like Dieter's idea of B1 at b or c best.

[Diagram]

Kakari

Bill: I kind of like this kakari, particularly as Black is strong on the top.

markgravitygood: I might go for the joseki in the bottom left:

[Diagram]


B1, W2, B3, W4 and B5 looks reasonable for black, and supports the lower side. If W2 at a, then B3 at 2. If W2 at b, then the 1-point jump to c by black looks good. This part of the board seems urgent to me and my 16k level. :)


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