In the Game

Last Sunday was held the final game to decide who would go to the World Mind Sports Games representing the USA in Beijing in October. The game confronted Joey Hung 8d vs Jie Li 9d and it was very interesting and very didactic as a sample of how to count ko threats and how to handle them.

But what strikes me the most was a sequence I found during the game and I'm still thinking it's worth trying. I was said during the game that my move wasn't good, but without explanation.

As you can see on the next image, there is a big fight going on the upper right corner of the board where there are several white and black groups involved and winning this fight would almost decide the result of the game.

Now that you've seen the board I'll tell you that the original sequence ends up with a huge ko for live or death. You can see the whole game on one board and my variation on another one.

When I logged yesterday in KGS and started watching the highest ranked game I didn't know how profitable would that game be for me.

The openning was unimpressive, a couple of pincers and some usual invasions, but it soon started to be a fighting game were stones were cut all over the board.

During the last month I've been reading the book on Tesuji by James Davies without realising any major improval in my level of the game... until I saw this game.

When I saw black's move 103 on the image, I instantly realised what he was trying to build.

By the way, the game is loaded on the continue reading with all the solutions to the tsumegos I'm talking about.

Unfortunatelly, white also noticed black's intentions, so he blocked the tesuji on the next move by playing at O15 and black took advantatge of it by attacking the right side, sliding downwards to S11.

A few moves later, after deciding what would happen with the stones placed on the right side, black decided to retake the attack on the cutting stones. Can you find the appropiate tesuji?

At this point of the game there was some discussion about if the tesuji didn't work or not, mainly because it was announced by a 7k (me) and it received some good commentaries from dan players and some bad ones from kyu players. In the end, the game was cloned and we discussed there the tesuji till we found it would work on the current position of the board.

The middle game went on and the lower group of white was about to die in a huge ko where both of the players had lots of ko threats but was won by white after ignoring a cut at E4, which would have left the upper right group eyeless if black had played properly.

So this was the final situation where, after the ko, white attempts to live by playing 220. According to a 6d who was watching the game, there is a possible way to kill white, which went unseen by the 4d who was playing as black. Can you see it? Actually, it isn't as hard as you would expect, but both players were already playing on a short byo-yomi basis.

For this tsumego, you should consider that the black group on the upper left corner is unconditionally alive, and that there isn't any sort of escapatory tesuji around F14.

On the other hand, when black defended at A16 and white played A13, black decided to play A11 in order to remove the second eye. This tesuji is well-known as the throw-in tesuji, but does this work in this occasion? Can white live after the throw-in?

In the end, what surprised me the most was move 230. It reminds me of the game between Hikaru and the Korean child, where the first made a move who everyone thought to be an error and managed to get a nice result.

Here you have move 230:

Black resigned after realising the meaning of the H13 move. Sincerely, congratulations on white for this move. You have the solution at the real game.

Yesterday I played the third game of the Ibero-American Tournament in KGS. My opponent was of unknown strenght, as his rank is hidden and his profile graphic ranges from 2d to 3k.

Before the game he had reviewed my previous games in order to find some weaknesses which he could exploit. Though this is not exactly illegal, punishing this mistakes doesn't prove to have a better understanding of the game if you have just learnt them in your preparation for that concrete game. But if we add this to his suspiciously unexpected disconnection in the middle of a L&D situation... well...

Move 45: the hane at R5 isn't good for black. See the game in order to find out how to punish black for it.

Move 53: white leaves the server. He got disconnected for a couple of minutes. Suspiciously, it is exactly in the middle of this silly life-and-death problem where black can't do anything but die.

Move 65: not exactly this move, but after the lost of the corner, I'm forced to turn the game into a moyo based one if I want to retain some remote possibilities of winning.

Move 79: The intention of this stones is to split white into two and let white decide which side to save. Unfourtunatelly, I end up in bad shape and this allows white to exploit that weakness later on with move 102.

Move 93: Who reads better?

Move 115: a nice sample of dual purpose move. It attempts to capture the white group from N7 while constructing a barrier for my moyo. In the end, white finds a gap with move 128 and my moyo is severely reduced.

Move 162: Black's bottom group can be killed and white plays tenuki.

Move 175: Black attempts to create a threat for a snapback and, just after realising that it doesn't work because white can capture at H8, white fails to see it and defends.

Move 249: Black removes one point from white's territory after he has passed.

All in all, the strenght of my opponent still remains unkown. How would the game have been if he hadn't reviewed mine? What would have happened if he hadn't left the server? Would he have lost on time? Would I have won? Would he have killed the bottom group?

On monday I played the second game of the TIG 2008 tournament, against a 1k, the highest rank in my group; therefore this is the toughest opponent I'm to face during this tournament.

Before the game, my opponent told me he had seen this blog. Once warned, I decided not to make the Kobayashi openning, a few seconds before skamus announced that I was playing as white according to the tournament directors. In the real game, black tried to make a sort of Kobayashi openning, which I answered with a short pincer: complicating the game only makes it worse for the weakest player.

We both made some good moves and I made some good blunders all over the board, but managed to get a big moyo on the left side. During the middle game you'll see one of my groups struggling to survive and in the end, a nice ko upper left (though I knew the sequence to survive, I didn't expect him to go for the ko).

All in all, I lost by "only" 13.5 points.

If you click on the continue reading, you'll see the game in EidoGo.