Correcting my tactics

yoyoma (2k) reviewed my game against rurquhart (23k) and I came away with these points:

1. Don't be afraid to extend while defending the corner (assuming it makes sense to do so).
2. Walls are of diminished use (and possibly useless) if they have no base.
3. Play a little further back when building defenses.
4. Playing on both the 3rd and 4th lines can add balance to defending the sides and corners (this was an overview of the Chinese Opening).
5. KGS ranks can be a poor indicator of one's true playing ability.
   

The review improved my game and prevented me from getting into suicidal dogfights. I had to stay up through the night to finish some work, and so I engaged in matches while waiting for some server batch jobs to complete. I found myself better able to handle breakouts and invasions.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my daughter ChiyoChan has taken up chess.

Boo-hoo! Where did I go wrong?!

FICS, one of the few remaining free chess servers.

But seriously, I've been trying to help her find a helpful online community where she too can play and have her games reviewed. What I've discovered is that the bulk of online chess servers have gone pay-to-play. Thus far, I found only three sites that offer full-featured free play and that largest of these is FICS, the Free Internet Chess Server. Now if only I could find the best client software for her besides Jin.

I can't help but wonder if, someday, IGS and KGS might themselves go pay-to-play if the server traffice becomes too heavy. KGS already has its premium paid service and WWGo is free only to non-Japanese (for the purpose of promoting Go).

Anyway, for those who play both Go and Chess, don't be surprised if you happen to see me on FICS. I'm a very poor chess player but I may be there on the rare occasion that ChiyoChan needs assistance