In the Game

We've already talked about sacrificing stones for "leaving the aji". On the next posts I'm going to talk about double hane too. And I hope you've watched the videos of the Workshops which took place at the European Go Congress this year, because you are going to put into practice all this three techniques in a single sequence in corner of a game.

Remember to stop each time you see the Question Image loading at the bottom of the page. You shouldn't see the following diagrams if you want to read the solution on your own.

This is not a prepared board for a post, but a real game played on KGS on August 14th between two 8k players.

Is there anywhere you'd like to play? In fact, you don't really NEED to play somewhere currently. You could play somewhere like S15 or S16. But imagine you are playing a Ko, and you need a Ko threat, is there any possible Ko threat there?

There are a couple of cutting points around there, but the game followed after a cut at P16 and its appropiate response by my opponent. This sequence is sente because of the presence of the M17 stone, which black needs to kill (or, at least, atari) as a response. In this way, I used the aji of the M17 to cut black in more groups, but my 22 and 24 end up as sacrificed stones too...

You may argue that sacrificing the stones there wasn't a good idea. I'm not really certain about it. Lately I realised that my game didn't improve because I didn't try new things or new ideas I had while playing and limited myself to play as I had been doing. Since I've started trying "new ideas", my game has improved a little bit.

Well, time to think a little bit again. Where would you play your next move as white? You may want to defend the possible cut at R15 but that isn't the right solution. I can tell you that black's four stones around Q17 die. Try using a few minutes with this move.

Though the sequence from P17 till the next move was played in 17
seconds considering black's time too (it was a fast game) and that I hadn't read the whole sequence during
the game, I decided to play the double hane here.

Now that you know I made a double hane, go back to the previous diagram and see what happens. If you still don't read the solution, it's because you haven't watched the single-digit kyu Workshop, or that your reading ability doesn't reach that far. In fact, as I told you, I didn't read this either during the game. So you'd better try it for a couple of minutes.

This intuition I'm building for this sort of moves is what is causing my level to grow little by little with my reading ability being the same. In the next diagrams you have the whole continuation of the sequence. Try reading them and considering all possible variations.

Here we can see the double hane, with black cutting, white deffending and black atari-ing at S18.

What is the next move? White has two stones on the other side, with 3 liberties. Black is about to create one eye. If you've watched the SDK workshop, you must be able to read this. If you haven't you probably won't be able to read it.

And here it is: the eye-stealing tesuji.

W30 at T17

Well, there you have it. After White 30, black is forced to answer at S18. After White 32, black is forced to kill the two stones. After White 34, black is forced to kill white 34... Then white will play Q18, which forces black to fill his own eye by playing at S17.

So this is the final result:

As you can see, black dies, because white plays first, but they have the same amount of liberties (2 vs 2). It is not necessary, but can you make it so that white has one extra liberty?

Yes, the only thing you need to do is to atari at N18. This way black needs to escape by playing L17 and you can chase him once again by playing O18. Black must answer connecting at M17. Now white has 3 liberties, and black only 2.

You have the game loaded on ZGo on the "continue reading" section. I've only loaded the first 50 moves, because, later in the game, are moves which I'd like to mention on other posts.

If you still haven't watched the SDK workshop, here you have it.

This situation is extracted from a real game played on KGS between to high dan players. The game was played by matsumoto (7d) vs gerard (6d) and it is available on the "continue reading section" (so as not to load Zgo on the homepage and feeds). Obviously, as I'm not a dan player either, I won't comment on things which I don't get, so I'll just try to focus on some aspects of the game and leave some of them openned for anyone to comment.

What would you do if you were black? Just take a minute to think about it, there are too many possibilities so it's not like you are going to make the same than a 7d player, but I want you to process a little bit the board before continuing.
(Everytime you see the image and line like the following one, you should stop for reading or thinking about a situation.)

As you can see, white "captured" Black L16 stone after playing move 20. We can see how black has been captured in that part of the board, with not many chances of escaping... But let's think of it once again: we are talking about a 7d and a 6d player. When Black played L16, did he play there on purpose? Did he expect to be pincered but assumed that he could escape?

I don't know if black had read this sequence or not, but I can tell you that white territory on the upper side is very large for a high-dan game, so Black won't allow himself to be captured so easily.

Let's see how the game goes on:

Ok... Let's read it out loud... Black pushes on a jump, so white must answer the peep by connecting and getting heavier. B23 starts a fight for black; a fight here would reinforce black. W24 tries to cut black.

Attention to move B29!!! He is making use of the stones 23 and 27 while sacrificing them!! This is what I told you about on the post "Leaving Aji for future purposes"; white could kill these cutting stones just by playing at O19, but there are bigger things going on than these 2 stones.

And then he makes a good shape with move 31, both deffensive and creating eyespace.

Do you think black will be able to escape now? What will happen with the stones around L13?
Try making a little bit of reading before continuing. I guess you won't get the right sequence unless you are a high-dan player (in which case you shouldn't be reading this blog, you'd be bored), I think you can assume more or less what will happen.

Seems like black made himself quite strong in that area... or not? We can see he has a false eye K15, but he could get one or even two eyes by playing at H15. But being enclosed is a very bad situation for this group. Black has to escape.

We can see how White74 is trying to press black for, in case Black doesn't answer, enclosing him. But Black plays move 79 and manages to escape.

Can you read a little bit of continuation??

White has to chase from both sides, so he has to play 1 stone on each side (which means 2 turns) to, later on, enclose black; while black only has to play 1 single stone to escape (one turn). So if black just goes on and on escaping, he won't be caught.

This is the situation that arises a few moves later

We can see how black has tried to escape with the triangled stones, while white was chasing him with his.

Why did I mark that area with crosses? It's what white has gained while chasing black. Now, we can see that white moves were "double purpose moves" and the result of playing such sequences.

In the end, there were some big fights all over the board and White ended up winning by time.

To capture on a large scale means to limit a group's development or eyespace till he dies but from the distance.

On the side we have a sample. Black B stone hasn't got enough space to develop and get eyespace, it's very difficult (if not impossible) to escape from that white moyo; so, in fact, this stone is dead, though he has 4 liberties left.

This is a very easy sample to see and to apply to real games, but usually black won't leave B lonely on the side and let you play A. He is going to try to escape or create eyespace.

The important point of this technique is that it can be applied to lots of games from all levels, from the real beginners to pros. The difficulty this technique has relies on the "when?" and realising it before your opponent does.

This easy sample may make you believe this technique is easy to use and to apply on real games. Here I'll explain you what has happened me during the last games and I'll show you another sample of a real-world situation.

Recently I've found myself playing a few complicated games, basically due to my lack of skills on fuseki... which leads me to this incredible fighting situations in the center of the board. It's an all-in game. If I kill, I win; if he lives, he wins.

This is one sample of them, as you can see, there is a white dead group on the upper side, and a black group about to die in the center... or not??

If you were white what would you have done?

I guess most of you saw the point at H11. Black group dies. Making a rough estimation, you are back by around 80 points.

The game ended up with black resigning. You have dream BIG. Now, go back to the diagram and explore it, being a little more greedy, try capturing at a larger scale.... Any idea?

I've left the solution at the "continue reading article", so that you don't check it directly before thinking for a while.