Shusaku Game 5 - Part 3

Are you ready for a riveting finale? This is a good game and it is about to get very complicated so lets dive in. As always you may want to start at the beginning if you're just getting here or go to Part 2 of the game review. Shusaku is black and has taken 3 stones against his opponent.

Figure 1

154 - 176

White just played the stone at B12 which is a very large point but it leaves some serious flaws in white's shape in the lower right. Black starts his attack at 54 using a hane to reduce white's eye space. Using the aji of the stone at P7 he plays a very sharp sequence that threatens to kill the corner through 68. The price of this is the capture at 69 which black blocks at 70 but then, after exchanging 71 for 72 white initiates a ko with 73. If white can escape and get a couple of extra liberties he can kill the three stones at 60, 64 and 66 so the ko is very urgent for both sides. White 71 is actually another incredibly sharp move because without it black would have the option of crawling along the first line with 70 and linking up with the stone at K2. While this is a fairly crude way of playing it does kill the corner with almost no compensation for white. Black takes the ko and then white makes his best ko threat at 75. Black ignores this threat and captures the corner group with 76. Black has seemingly scored a major success but the threat at 75 is incredibly severe, putting the life of the large black group in the lower left into doubt. 

Figure 2

177 - 200

189 at 84

191, 194, 197, 200 Take Ko

White follows up on his threat with 77 and Shusaku strikes at the corner first pushing at 78 and then striking underneath with 80. This allows him to set up a second eye (the first is at E4) via a ko through 90. White captures the ko and black starts with a local threat at 92 which would allow him to connect to the outside. White makes an internal theat of his own and plays 95, aiming at black's other eye. Black has to respond and with 97 white retakes the ko. Black turns to the wealth of ko threats he has against the large line of white stones along the top. Finally black retakes the ko with 200.

Figure 3

201 - 212

3, 6, 9 Take Ko

11 Fills Ko at D2

White continues threatening the other black eye while black keeps threatening the stones up top. The the value of 4 is greater than 10 which is why white keeps resisting for an extra move after 4. When black plays 10 white finishes off the ko, and the large black group, on the bottom. This allows black to wedge at 12 and capture the white stones along the top. While this is not as big as black's capture black also had to give up the lower right corner to set up the attack in the lower left. The value of the lower right and top is very close to the value of the large black group in the lower left. It is rare to see so many large scale captures but this is a particularly violent game.

Figure 4

213 - 233

White starts with some sente reducing moves with 13 through 23. Sente profit taken he plays the largest point available at 25. Black does the same by taking the large gote point at 26. Large at this stage of the endgame is fairly relative as 25 and 26 are worth only about 3 or 4 points. This gives white the chance to play some more forcing moves with 27 through 31. If white had played 27 etc. before stopping to play 25 black might have played around 25 himself instead of answering 27. This game is very close so both players are battling over every point. Finally white makes a gote play at 33 to secure a handful of points on the right side.

Figure 5

234 - 271

This is the rest of the endgame. Shusaku makes some sente plays of his own with 34, 36 and 38 before connecting with 40. White pushes with 41 and then captures a stone in the upper left center with 43. You know the game is almost over when players are making two point gote plays. Black makes some sente moves with 44 in the lower right and then 46 (which threatens a follow up at 47 which is why white defends) and 48 on the left side before defending his center area with 50. We have another series of small reductions with white 51, 53, and then the capture at 55 which black has to respond to or white will enclose another point by playing at 56 himself. From that position further reductions are possible at N1, O1, etc. so black wisely plays 56 right away. From here both players are pretty much grinding out one point plays all over the board.

Finally black plays at 70, reducing white's potential territory by one point and white defends at 71. The game is over and black leads by a single point. Truly a difficult game but the most amazing thing is that this is the work of an eleven year old in 1840. Today there are many young players with terrifying strength but this boy had no access to Go Academies like there are today throughout Japan, China and Korea let alone the wealth of modern analysis that has happened in the last 70 years since the shin-fuseki movement started by Go Seigen and Kitani Minoru. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this game review, keep practicing and have fun!

Shusaku Game 5 - Part 2

If you missed the first installment and want to catch up go right ahead, we'll still be here, ready? Awesome, lets get going. Shusaku is playing black and this game is from 1840 when Shusaku was ten or eleven. In this game he takes three stones. Throughout this post I keep track of the score so this would be a good opportunity to practice your counting as well. While my own method is by no ways perfect it allows me to keep a fairly precise idea of established territory. This can be useful as if you are behind by more than ten points it usually helps to attack while if you are ahead by ten points you can be happy with simplifying the game.

Figure 1

106 - 126

Black puts his strength to use by invading at 6. White responds by holding down with 7 and building outside strength. Black continues to harass white on the outside and then switches to 26 which robs white's large group of its second eye. Black plays this because of the continuation that will be forced around the L8 point but this stratagem seems somewhat doubtful in that it is likely to weaken the large black group stretching out from the lower left in order to attack the floating white group up top. 

There is very little certain territory but white here has about 6 points in both the lower left and upper right as well as about 10 points in the lower right. His group on the upper left side only has about five points of territory of if black gets to play A18 which is a huge endgame move for both sides. This gives white about 27 points of sure territory. Black, on the other hand, has perhaps five points of sure territory throughout the lower side plus five points in the upper left and another six on the upper right side. This makes for only 16 points. Black has a considerable advantage in influence however and will look to make up the difference by attacking. To be trailing so much in territory entering the middlegame is troubling but this is mostly because of Shusaku's mild fuseki. Black can make maybe 20 points in the center so his game is not bad yet. White must feel good with the situation being semi-equal after taking a three stone handicap.

Figure 2

127 - 153

White threatens to make another eye with 27 and when that is denied pushes out with 29. Here black gives way with 30 allowing white to connect at 31 which puts the black stones below in a precarious position. We see black's plan with 32 and the following harassment of the floating white stones though to white 43 which firmly establishes the connection to the secure white group below. Now both sides take some large points and black is canny in taking 44 instead of 45. Both these moves are large but if black plays at 45 and white plays at 44 white would have a good follow up move around G13 whereas there is no large scale continuation for white 45. This allows black to keep sente to block at 46 which creates some serious problems with white's shape in the lower right corner. After the quick sequence where black exchanges 48 and 50 for 49 and 51 black takes another large point with 52 and white follows suite at 53. 

Now the territories are even more set so lets look at the score so far. Black has solidified his territory at the bottom right and now has about 10 points of sure territory, adding the eyes of the group on the lower left we can estimate about 13 points for the bottom. Black has expanded his territory at the top to about 14 points plus one for the eye at S13 makes 15. The big increase has come in the center where black has made about 16 points of sure territory and this might later swell to closer to 24 depending on the in game play. Total this and you have 44 total points for black. 

White's lower right corner is in trouble so we might count two points for white at T4 and T5 but this is no longer solid territory for him. He has expanded the right side to 12 points so we can count 14 for him here. The upper right and lower left corners are still at 6 apiece for 12 total points here and there. This shows the value of counting early to get estimates, many situations don't change and if you already know that these two corners are a certain value you can rapidly make accurate estimates of the scores in your games. White has also expanded the upper left and now has about 13 points here. With the couple other small patches in the lower right center and the two spaces at B7 and C7 (which count double since they were captures) we can add another 7 points to white's total. That gives white a total of 44 as well. While my counting isn't the most accurate in the world (the lower right corner is actually worth 7 points, among other minor assumptions here and there) it shows how close this game is.

Hmmmm... This has turned into a sort of counting workshop so let us go over my technique for counting in a post soon. Next time see the thrilling conclusion of this very close game, till then, keep playing and have fun.

Continue on to Part 3

1st!!

Getting the complete recorded games of Shusaku's tomorrow. All 400 some odd of them including games that aren't finished or completely recorded, the only downside is that its in Chinese. Shouldn't be too much of a problem, I'll just miss out on the commentary.

For the not a one of you who will be reading this (at least right now) I'll have problems up fairly often or whole board examples from both pro games and, possibly, some of my own. I think it can be useful for players in the mid to high kyu range to get analysis from a player around 5 kyu. The concepts don't completely fly over your head that way, which happens to me when I listen to two dan players talk about a situation. They'll say things like "Well this hane doesn't work because of the ladder." and I'll be "What ladder?" sigh...

More soon, have fun!