Alejo's Tenuki

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). Obviously, since 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 opened 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.
(Every time you see the image and line like the following one, you should stop for reading or thinking about a situation.)

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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 defensive and creating eye space.

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.

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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??

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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.

Hi there!!

I finally got the SmartGo 2.7.1 reviewed. The review lasts for 26 minutes and covers as many features and details as I could and comments on a few weak points. In fact, I think that even if you have it, you’ll find some good details you may not be aware of. Is it worth it to buy it or not? I can tell you that if I had to choose between Many Faces of Go 11 and SmartGo 2.7, I would definitelly go for the last one (while I can’t say anything about MoyoGoStudio as I still haven’t reviewed it).

Better see it by yourself, compare and decide:

As you can see, the video was made on a very large resolution, so youtube doesn’t let you see the video properly. You can download this video directly from my server: HERE. As you’ll see, the video occupies around 50MB at a 1280×1024 resolution.

You may argue that the filesize is very big, but you should realise that most divx films (around 90 minutes) occupy around 700 MB, so I think I can be qutie proud of the compression procedure. I’ve checked this video both on Linux and Windows, though I’ve been reported audio problems with beta versions of this review and I’ve changed the audio codec, let me know if you have any problem with it.

As for SmartGo 3.0, there is already a list of improvements Anders

As you can see, the video was made on a very large resolution, so youtube doesn’t let you see the video properly. You can download this video directly from my server: HERE. As you’ll see, the video occupies around 50MB at a 1280×1024 resolution.

You may argue that the filesize is very big, but you should realise that most divx films (around 90 minutes) occupy around 700 MB, so I think I can be qutie proud of the compression procedure. I’ve checked this video both on Linux and Windows, though I’ve been reported audio problems with beta versions of this review and I’ve changed the audio codec, let me know if you have any problem with it.

As for SmartGo 3.0, there is already a list of improvements Anders Kierulf is working on: exporting to images, improving options panel and connection tactics…

We’ll be waiting for it!!

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?

Now black is going to have a hard time trying to save his group. If black doesn’t save his cutting stones at M8, you win. Down here you can see the whole game, with both of us making lots of mistakes. I think black tried too badly to save that group and didn’t care about the M8 (which would have ruined the game for me once again).

On the last post I introduced the EuroGoTV to you. Today I decided to watch a few more of the videos this user has uploaded and discovered this wonderful workshop which took place at the European Go Congress 2007, with the collaboration of Yoon Young-sun (5p). It was a great surprise to discover these series of videos with a very didactic content and focused for players in the single-digit kyu range.

In fact, there is a Double-Digit Kyu Workshop available too at his site but I still haven’t seen it yet. I’ll add it here, but I can’t comment on them (though it will problbaly be of the same quality). I hope you enjoy both of them.

EuroGoTV is a website which periodically publishes new videos of some European Go World. There you can see Guo Juan (5p) commenting on some games played recently, you can also see how Alexander Dinerchtein commenting daily on the last European Go Congress, the interviews to the programmers of the last computer olympiad… down to double digit kyus workshop.

This videos are hosted on youtube, so their load should be quite fast indeed, not as the website itself, which is currently being developed but it is worth to keep it bookmarked.

This is an extract from their own site:

This is a situation from a game I played last week.

As you can see, black has a huge territory on the bottom of the board. The two stones at C4 have been sacrificed during the game… or not?

Is there anyway you could profit from their presence?

Yes, it is possible to invade the bottom of the board by taking these cutting stones into account. If we played as shown on the next picture (what happened on the game) it seems possible to invade there. As you can see, black had to avoid that this cutting stones successed on their purpose and I took the chance here to invade.

Probably some better players can tell us that the invasion was killable anyway by some hard-reading exercise, but this was made on byoyomi, with around 30 seconds per move on a game between players at 9-10k level, so we didn’t have much time to think. As the illustrator of "Empty Triangle" says: crap time runs out time runs out must move fast must think now no time.