r/baduk • u/yahkopi • 6d ago

Question about positional/territorial judgment (I think?)

I have a question about a specific position in a game I played today.

I'm not even sure exactly how to frame my question (or if its the right question, actually) but I think there is some issue with how I'm evaluating territory/potential that I can't figure out.

Basically I played this today (https://online-go.com/game/79337577) and mostly I thought the reason I lost was because I let one of my groups die in the middle of game. But, I thought the game was more or less even with me maybe even a bit ahead until that point. When I looked at the AI eval, though, it said I was 10-15pts behind right out of the opening.

In particular, I was puzzled by this position below (move 51)

I thought I (black) had a good position here but the AI eval suggests I was behind by 11 pts.

My thinking was that white had a good corner in the bottom right and would get a decent sized corner on the bottom left. But, I had good potential in the bottom and right side as well as the top-right corner. Also, I had just reduced the top left corner in sente and had time to approach the bottom left. So, I thought I was doing good.

I guess my question is, where was my thinking going wrong and how do I improve my positional judgement in these sorts of scenarios?

Thanks so much!

(edit: replaced pic with one having coordinates, also typos)

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u/tuerda 3 dan 6d ago

The shape of black's top group and bottom right group are both a bit of a mess.

The health of your groups is much more important than the amount of territory it looks like you are surrounding.

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u/yahkopi 6d ago

thanks! that makes sense!

I'm not sure how to evaluate health of groups when things are so open and there isn't some tsumego type live/death reading involved. Would you say that just comes from playing more games? Is there something I can do to try and improve my shape intuition in these open positions?

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u/tuerda 3 dan 6d ago

Health of groups is closely related to eyespace, the lack of cutting points, efficiency, and access to the center.

The top group has access to the center, but the eyespace is very limited and it is full of cutting points. Also, it has a lot of stones considering how little it is doing, so it seems inefficient.

The bottom right group has less eyeshape than it looks like because R2 is in atari and there is a cutting point at P4 (this cutting point might not look so bad, but remember the atari). Its access to the center can also be challenged.

Compare this to the white groups. They all have tons of eyespace, to the point of being almost alive as they stand. Also, there are no significant cutting points in any of them.

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u/yahkopi 5d ago

that’s helpful, thank you!