Losing Streak

Well, over the past 2 days I have lost 5 games in a row. If I remember correctly, this ties my record for longest losing streak; I think this is the 4th time this has happened. My longest winning streak is 9 games; this has occurred 4 times also, I think. The last game was a very interesting, hard-fought game, with a lot of complicated positions and exchanges. Unfortunately, I made a couple of misreads, leading to my resignation.

Here is the position after move 67. Black has just played the circled stone. In the game I played a6, which allows black to c7, after which I played d7. Then black played b10, trapping the three white stones, and I captured the black stone on e7 to connect to my center group. The problem is that the black group on the left is no longer under pressure, and white has not built enough territory/thickness/influence to compensate. The black group in the center is still under attack, but considering I gave my opponent the bottom left corner earlier in exchange for outside influence and thickness, this is not quite enough.

If I played a7, I would have been able to capture the two black stones on the left, and made life for my group there in the process...black could have prevented me from connecting with the center group, but one weak group wedged between two weak groups is really a strong group. This position was really quite an easy one to read out...but I suppose I tend to make these kinds of blunders when I am on losing streaks. I had an advantage earlier, however, so after this, I feel I still had a small advantage.

I had a nice wall on the bottom, so I set to attacking sharply the bottom right corner. After move 81, this position looked like this:

This looks a lot like the avalanche, which I could play into by playing on p3. That would give me an advantage locally compared to the standard avalanche, because I'd have an extra stone on o3, but I decided that wasn't good enough, so I played more agressively.......and played on r3, the 3-3 point! The result? After some fighting, the position reached this point after move 112.

The 3-3 point looks like a good play! The circled white stone is the last one played, and it cuts the two black groups apart. Unfortunately, this may have been an overplay, as black proceeded to utilize his stones in the middle of the white "territory" skillfully, resulting in this position after move 125.

The result is that black has gained some of white's territory, and cut off the white stones in the center from the group at the bottom, but has not connected or made 2 eyes. I, however, then blundered badly, connecting at L7 instead of sacrificing that stone. Black proceeded to play a sacrifice at m8, and all the white stones there cannot escape; in addition, black connects his groups and gets massive amounts of influence on the right side. Black now has the advantage, but it is not overwhelming yet, at least not at the 3k level, so I made another try, playing aggressively at c12. This, however, turned out to be overplay, and I soon had to resign.