Shusaku Game 4

This is a classic game from Shusaku's youth. This game is also in Invincible: The Games of Shusaku so I was able to find out the name of his opponent. The year is 1940 and Shusaku takes 3 stones against Ito Shuwa 6 dan, the head Honinbo disciple. Shusaku is still very young (and, actually, if I keep going through this book in order he will continue to be very young for many more blog posts, maybe I'll switch it up and do a game from later in his life next time) and his style is not fully refined but his play is still very strong.

Figure 1

1-28

The large knight move was a standard response in handicap games at the time. In contemporary Go the one point jump is considered a more active way to play since it works with the star point stone to build influence. Black plays solidly up through 19 but his attachment at 20 is suspect. As a rule of thumb one shouldn’t attach to weak stones since it makes them stronger. The other problem with this sequence is how well white’s approach move at 5 coordinates with the finished shape. If there were a black stone at 5 instead then this would be a good sequence since a black stone here would be aimed squarely at the weak underbelly of the white formation. Finally black has to go back to connect with 28 which means white has settled his stones on the right side in sente without any effort on his own part.

Figure 2

29-51

White makes two approach moves in the upper left which is a standard handicap strategy to complicate the game. Black might have wanted to make a one point jump to 34 instead of pincering with 32. It is hard to argue with 32 as making an extension and a pincer is almost always a good idea. Black attaches at 34 to separate white’s stones. Why does Shusaku attach at 34 instead of attaching to the other white stone at 29? The answer is simple, as a rule of thumb, you should always attach to the stronger stone. The white stone on the upper side is already caught in a pincer while the stone on the left side has plenty of room to make an extension. Since the stone on the upper side is weaker black naturally attaches to the stronger stone on the left, making it and his own position stronger. This is also a basic example of a leaning attack. Black attaches to the stone on one side to build up strength for the forthcoming attack on the other.

When white makes his own attachment at 39 he still needs to extend down the left side to stabilize his stones, but by starting a fight on top with 39 and the crosscut of 41 he is aiming at pushing through at D15. If he can cut through successfully he won't need to extend down the side. Because of this cut black has to handle this situation very carefully. Since we’ve been talking about attachments a lot lets look at 39 some more. The black stone at K17 is very strong since it entrenched on the third line and is a two space extension from another stone. Strengthening such a stone hardly matters since black’s position is already so secure. Through 51 white first leans against blacks corner in the upper right and then wraps around black’s two stones in the center. We can see a fierce fight taking shape along the upper side.

Figure 3

52-78

The fight is very complicated but white slips slightly at 63. This move seems a bit slow and allows black to take sente and cut at 68 which is very severe. White has to scramble with three different weak groups floating on the upper side. With 77 he manages to link one group to the left, simultaneously sealing black into the corner. Black lives in the corner with 78 and now white turns back to the other two weak groups. Though the situation is very complicated black has done well during the fight, securing his stones in the corner and keeping the pressure on white.

Figure 4

 79-101

Note: 1 = 101

This fight is tricky and up through 95 both sides play very strong moves. Shusaku slips with 96 which should be played to prevent a move like white 99 (probably at M10) which is very severe. With 96 black is looking to kill the large white group wrapped around the upper left corner. In Go it is usually inadvisable to attempt such large captures and instead opt for forcing your opponent to live small. In this particular case it will be hard to kill this group because the black corner is still somewhat precarious and white will be able to use that aji very effectively to get his own eyes. Since it is unlikely that this group can be killed 96 seems to be an overplay. White exchanges 97 for 98 and then strikes at 99 which is very severe. Now it seems that black will have to do some scrambling of his own. Black follows up 96 with 100 but it is hard to see much coming from this attack after white 101 (1 in Figure 4)

Next post we'll wrap this game up and maybe I can get some more problems up later today. Hope you enjoyed this so far.

Continue to Part 2