First time taking white!

So I entered the 19×19 Ladder on DGS, because I thought it would be fun; I have no illusion: if I manage to keep out of the bottom 100 I will have achieved the impossible. Right now I am at 595 on the ladder, after winning my first game. Now, what makes that a surprise is that I actually took white in this game… I’ve never taken white in a 19×19 game, so it was really strange; constantly I had to remind myself of this fact, because I almost accidentally played in the wrong places a few time thinking that white was getting too much territory. The ultimate result was a very comfortable win, and I thoroughly enjoyed it; while winning is always great, this game gave me quite a few reading challenges that could have cost me the game.

W+52; 6 dum [komi], Fischer 10d+1d – Black 191 at R9

160 at J3 was one of those moves that put a smile on my face; with the response at H2, I extended to J4 and managed to deprive the two black groups at H2 and E2 of life (163 and 164 could have been played the other way around, but to the same result I think), I killed them, murdered them, mwhohahahahaaaa (=my evil laugh)… or so I thought. After Black connects with 165 at J7, I move to F4 , realising that I if Black had played there he could have made those groups live (I think…).

So we move to elsewhere on the board doing some typical endgame moves (move 167 to 175) in the upper left and the upper right areas, and I secure some cutting points with 176 at G7.  Then Black proceeds to play 177 at G17, and I pause (luckily) to make sure I respond correctly to prevent his stones from going all zombie apocalypse on that particular area and depriving myself of 25 points; luckily my head was clear for once and I play at F1, going all serial killer on the same corpse… which is a weird visual that you should just forget.

179 and 180 are just minor moves to secure boundaries and cutting points. But then, black plays at O2 before I could secure that particular point… and I panick a little bit (a lot)… So I run with 182 at N1, black chases with 183 at N2, I run harder with 184 at N3… I’m thinking I’ll just run, and suddenly that previously twice killed group is threatening to rise from the dead, and this time take away a lot more than 25 points! However, instead of following me, he played M3. So I managed to read it out properly, because there was only one way to keep my stones (and basically the entire game) alive. I actually wrote a note in the private notes section spelling the sequence out and adding: THINK AND READ THIS THREE TIMES BEFORE PLAYING YOU DUFUUS!!! which helped. I played 186 at M2, knowing that he’d have to play at L2 if he continues playing in that area, and I read what I wrote 15 times and read it out again before playing 188 at N3… And I breath… and do a dance… literally… I did a actual dance…

He tried to invade at another cutting point at P8, but I knew that I could prevent him from living; the sequence 189 to 202 maintained the status quo. I tried to do some funny stuff with 204 at R17, but that ended up in nothing and the game was done…

I knew I had won… and I felt like Frodo after he had just deposited the One Ring in the fiery chasms of Mount Doom… I beat a 26k with white on DGS, and jumped up to 26k on that server myself, while moving up to 595 on the ladder.