Basic Life and Death - Part 2

So last time we were looking at the lower right in this situation, remember that it is black to move in either corner and kill, and there were two tesujis that killed white. Go back and look at it if you want but in the upper left there is only one correct move for black to kill. I said before that only one of the tesujis would work but I lied a little, you need both eye stealing tesujis in the upper right but the order is important. Lets look at the problem again:

Reference Diagram

 Black to Move and Kill

So we covered the lower right but what about the situation on the upper side? Black doesn't have quite as firm a grip on these stones so white might have some hope... 

Figure 1 - Failure

Starting From the Outside
Black 7 at 3, if Black 7 at 8
White 3 makes a second eye.

Black tries the eye stealing tesuji of 1 but hasn't bothered to read out the situation. Since the stone at M18 is one line further away than the stone at N2 this move is no longer correct.

Figure 2 - Solution

Starting From the Inside

Black 1 strikes at the vital point. After this there is no way for white to get two eyes. White can respond in a couple of ways but the strongest and most natural is to try to expand his eye space like this:

Figure 3 - White Expands

Black 8 at 6

White expands with 1 and threatens to make two eyes when he blocks with 3. Black simply adds another stone on the inside and white is left with a dead shape. White might alter the move order or try to escape up through 9 but there is no second eye here. White could also play at 4 immediately but then black 1 is enough. White could play 3 at 4 as well but that would just yield this variation:

Figure 4 - White Plays on the Inside

We already know that the 3-4 exchange produces only a false eye so again white has failed. The question then is what should white do with these stones? The answer is, for now, nothing. Perhaps in some future fighting white will get a chance to play at K18 and then execute the sequence in Figure 3, connecting his stones to the outside. White can also use this corner for several mid sized ko threats so these stones still have some aji left. Hope you liked the problems, I'm getting to work on the next Shusaku game review as well. 

Basic Life and Death

This is kyu material but I thought I'd go over some basic life and death. Look at this diagram and see if you can read out the solutions. Here is a hint: In the lower right there are two tesujis that work but in the upper left only one of these two will work. After the jump I'll have the two solutions to the lower right and next time we'll go over the situation in the upper left.

Problem Diagram

Black to Move and Kill in Either Corner

Note: There are two ways to kill the lower right

but only one to kill the upper right.

Please, lay this out on a board if you can't see the solution and practice your reading. There are only a few possible moves so this will be a good test. Alright, got it? Really? For sure, you know every variation? Ok... here we go!

Life and Death Problem 1

Here is the situation and then you can look at the solution and see how this happened and what occurred in the actual game after the jump. Also, I just realized that it would make more sense to just post the problem and solution at the same time and hide the solution by making it visible only after you click on the read more link. That will make it easier to archive the problems because each will only have on post, so after this we'll keep it simpler.

Dia. 1

White has just descended with the marked stone which we decided later was a mistake, instead white might look at playing atari to the left of the marked stone at C18. Alright, its a complicated situation and there may be another way to live, or maybe there is a way for white to kill black but I at least went over this with a dan player and he was convinced that black could live. Think you've got it? Solution after the jump.

Life and Death Problem 2

Here is a decent problem that I adapted from a game I played on KGS the other night.

Black has just descended with the marked stone which gives white a good opportunity. White to move and live on the right. Solution in a few days.

A Tricky Situation

This comes from a game I played yesterday, I'll go into exactly how this came about and what the in game result was later but look at this and figure out if you can make something happen for black.

White has just descended here which, in an after game review, we decided was a mistake. Black to save some stones on the inside. I'll show how this came about and what happened in the actual game in the next post.