Give Me Sente Or Give Me Death!

Any beginner kyu knows the feeling of being led around the goban like a dog on a leash. The advantage of going first as Black can be lost within only a few moves while playing a higher kyu. Not only does this make it hard to win a game, it also makes for a less enjoyable game. The question is: How do you take back the initiative? The first answer would be to wait until your opponent plays a move you don't have to respond to. That usually doesn't happen. For me, as a beginner, I decided to make a small sacrifice and ignore my opponents good move and attempt to gain sente elsewhere on the board. This helped me very much in my 5 handicap game against
JohnBrian (25k) [5 stones making it an even game]. Rather than respond to many of his moves, I chose instead to build moyo and ignore any move that I could. If I had to respond, I made every attempt to make it a dual-purpose move. By the middle game I had a large moyo and knew an attack inside my territory was imminent. At move 123, White jumped inside my upper left group at the 3-3 point. I have not spent much time with Life and Death problems, and had no desire no lose the game over a lost corner. Instead I played only to contain him. Thinking me a coward, he jumped inside my upper right corner. That changed my mind. I fed him a stone, causing White to become heavy, and after a short exchange, killed his attacking group, and a few moves later, killed off the straglers that tried to crawl further down. I am certain that I owe this victory to taking off the leash and playing my game, and not responding to my opponents' moves. [I hope very much that JohnBrian doesn't speak English because he did not respond to my greeting or thanks at the end of the game. Go has a long heritage of tradition and respect, and the greeting is very important. --I don't know many people named John Brian who don't speak English, but we will give him the benefit of the doubt-- For further reading on the greeting, please stop by and read Chiyodad's blog entry about Greetings. Very well done.