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 4 - Part 2

Onto the second half of the the game. If you missed it here is part one. Shusaku is eleven at the time of this game and is playing black with a three stone handicap. The bulk of the second half of the game is a large ko fight that I'm going to break down into pretty small pieces so we can try to understand whats happening on the board. Here we go:

Figure 1

102-119

Black tries to escape at 4 and here we see the severity of white 99 (the stone at N10). The central white group gets a lot of strength pushing black around and when he pokes at 15 black has no time to connect at 19 but must use 16 and 18 to ensure safety for his large group. Losing these stones is a big setback but black still has the lead. Looking at how the game turned out it is easy to see that black should have played in the center rather than pressuring the white group in the upper left. Had black played at 4 directly with 96 (which was played at D11 to pressure the eye space of the stones on the left side) then the lead would still be solidly in Shusaku's hands. Once the three cutting stones are captured with 19 the pressure black built on the left is meaningless.

Figure 2

120-136

Black ataris with 20 and then white builds up the bottom in the sequence through 35. White looks to get a pretty decent amount of territory along the bottom which, if you look back to before this sequence, is impressive as white was fairly thin around here. With 36 black starts a ko fight that rages through the next 50 moves.

Figure 3

137-145

39, 42, 45 Take Ko

One thing to note is that white has a plethora of threats around 37 but black will be happy to take compensation in another part of the board so he has quite a few himself. This is the style of playing 40. Even if he loses the ko he just has to break up white territory somewhere to win.

Figure 4

146-154

48, 51, 54 Take Ko

Here we continue with black threatening to jump into white's territory while white threatens black's center left position. Even with all the ko threats around 49 this fight is very hard on white. He has to come out of this fight ahead or it will be almost impossible to stage an upset in the endgame. The 52, 53 exchange looks a little strange but black is aiming at the hane at Q14 while white is trying to keep the aji of reducing the corner alive while protecting against the hane. Black retakes with 54 and white will continue to threaten the center left.

Figure 5

155-169

57, 60, 69 Take Ko

When black retakes with 60 white threatens at 61 but when black connects at 62 white must block at 63 or black will play there and his center stones are suffering from a shortage of liberties. If black 63, white J11, black L13 and black has rescued his three stones. Shusaku seizes the opportunity and wedges at 64 in sente to reduce the center and then plays the extremely big point at 68. This lets white recapture the ko with 69 but more or less assures black of a small lead.

Figure 6

170-184

72, 75, 78 Take Ko

84 Fills Ko at O3

White keeps making threats but his position is so dire that even black 76, connecting in the upper right, serves as a ko threat, forcing white to play 77 to keep his territory intact. When white finally runs out of threats and plays 79 to enlarge his territory on the lower side black senses victory. After first playing the endgame sente moves at 80 and 82 he comes back to fill the ko with 84. Black has a small but insurmountable lead at this point and by connecting the ko he shows that he is confident that he can win with the current balance of territory. 80, for example, could have been saved as a ko threat and black might have tried to force white to settle for a less valuable move than 79 but 84 is good enough for the win. 

Figure 5

185-202

189, 192, 195, 198, 201 Take Ko

Another ko fight develops in the upper left but when black simply gives way with 202 the game is pretty much over. The game record ends here but there are only a small handful of points to still be played. If you want to do a quick exercise try to find the biggest endgame move for white (bonus if you find the two biggest and identify which is larger and what order they should be played in). I'll have the answer after the jump. I hope you enjoyed this game even though the bulk of it was a ko fight. Have fun!

You want Shusaku? You get Shusaku!

The small handful of people who have been to the site seem to really like the Shusaku game review. I figure that I'll just start going through his existing game records and commenting on what I can see in the games. I apologize for the inevitable mistakes. I feel like I have a strong understanding of the game but am also far, far away from mastery. Since this commentary is aimed at kyu players I should be able to offer some insight into what is going on. I would greatly appreciate any stronger players who might want to contribute to our collective understanding of this beautiful game. If you are just joining us then please look at the previous game record of Shusaku's that I commented on last week.

Now, lets get into the next game. This is also from 1839 when Shusaku was ten years old. His opponent is a 3 dan player. Remember that this is before the invention of komi so games could be tied and taking black was a huge advantage.

Dia. 1

Here we have a fairly standard classical fuseki with all initial stones being played on the 3-4 point. The pincer at 6 is fairly loose so black feels comfortable playing tenuki to enclose the corner at 7. I have a hard time deciding whether 8 is good or not. It seems very large to extend down the left, establishing a base while also reducing the value of black's enclosure. This also increases, albeit indirectly, the pressure on black's stone in the upper right as it it is no longer possible to directly attack the white pincer. If black encloses the corner at 8 then white can enclose his own corner in the lower right. On the other hand it is common thinking that allowing black to enclose two corners is a little slow for white, who is already behind by a move, so perhaps white 8 is appropriate. When black attacks at 9 I feel some apprehension though, especially as black 9 is very big, being an extension from the black shimari in the lower left.

White 10 and black 11 are generally considered a little slow in modern thinking. Regardless of that they remain solid moves. Perhaps the efficiency is not as high as it could be but most of that difference is made up by the solid nature of the shape created by the diagonal extension. White jumps to 12 and it looks like we will have a fight on our hands. Black would like to settle his stones and build up the lower left corner while attacking 6 and 12. White will look to harass black's group while leading 6 and 12 into the center and solidifying territory along the top.

Dia. 2

Now we see how this fight played out, black peeps at 13 to make the white stones heavy and then slides into the corner to try to get eyes. White 16 and 18 are very sharp, allowing white to destroy any potential eye space black might have found on the side. White reinforces the top with 24 and Shusaku wastes no time attacking at 25 and 27. These are very good, basic, attacking moves. Note how well 25 and 27 coordinate with the black enclosure below. White naturally counter attacks at 29 and black attaches at 29. This fight is about to get very complicated but I think we can follow it. While the black stones are weak they have a move at C18 that will get them two eyes. While simply surviving like this would represent a loss, the ability to fall back and live allows black to fight to the limit. Remember also that the white group is also weak. Black should be able to use the aji available to craft an acceptable result.

Dia. 3

This is a beautiful sequence that demonstrates the prover 'There is no ko at the beginning of the game.' The meaning of this proverb is that if a ko emerges at the beginning there are no ko threats so whoever captures the ko first will simply ignore any threat and finish the ko. Black pushes through with 31 & 33 and then turns to cut at 35. Then black continues to push and white is forced to start a ko to save his stones. Black captures the ko first and then white makes a very serious local threat at 46. I just said there are no ko threats in the beginning but this is a local threat that deals with the ko specifically. If black fills the ko at 34 then white will cut at 47 and capture the whole group connected to the ko. Black has no choice but to connect at 47. Fortunately for black he also has a local ko threat. If white ignores 49 to connect the ko then black will cut at 50 and kill the white stones outright. After this white takes the best option available by pressing at 52 but, like the proverb says, there is no ko at the beginning of the game and black fills it to take the corner.

This result is actually fairly close to even. Black has taken a large corner in the upper left but so has white in the upper right. Black's five stones in the lower left map out a very large territory but the white wall on the top coordinates well with the upper right. Since black has sente I think the game is slightly better for him so far but, again, my analysis may be somewhat off. Hope you have enjoyed this series. Continue with the game in the next post.

Shusaku Game 1 (Part 5)

Here we go, we will wrap up this game and then find something new to dig our teeth into. I will be doing many Shusaku game reviews here but sometimes I will pick out pro games too, especially when looking at fuseki which has changed a lot. There will also be more problems as time goes on, which reminds me I have to post the solutions to those two life and death problems. If you're just getting here you can go to the beginning or click the link to 'Game Reviews' at the top of the page to go to a page that will have links to all the games I go over on this site.

First of all I'm going to backtrack here and cover the end of the ko fight that were were looking at last time because this is where (I think!) black pulls ahead. Black 29 has just taken the ko to the left of 47 and white makes a ko threat by peeping at 30 along the top.

Dia. 1

Black ignores this ko threat and turns to attack the large white group on the bottom. The logic is that after 31 and 33 the white cut at 49, setting five black stones adrift, is no longer very threatening to black. This is doubly true because the white stones in the top center are very weak and have bad shape. 33 also weakens this group further. White has no time to take the ko after 33 because he has to make eyes for his large group on the bottom. While he manages to make two eyes through 46 black is comfortable enough to ignore white 30 and fill the ko at 47. White would like to play at 49 to profit from his ko threat but the white group in the center is so weak that he has to take the time to reinforce it at 48. Black now descends at 49 so white can't even get partial compensation from the ko.

We can see that white 30 was actually a mistake that allowed black to gain the advantage in the center and eventually win the ko fight. This also shows the wisdom of not following your opponent around the board. Had this been my game I might have reflexively answered white 30 and then gone on the lose the game. Every move you should take stock of whether you truly have to respond to your opponent, take every chance you can to get sente and execute your own plan. If we remember that white had to add the stone at R12 to increase the value of the ko we see that white has invested a number of stones into this fight and gotten almost nothing in return. This is a beautiful sequence for black and really shows how strong Shusaku was even at a young age (he is ten at the time of this game).

With 50 white takes the biggest point on the board but this allows black to take the initiative and attack the floating white stones at 51.

Dia. 2

White pushes out through 60 and then builds up the top left with 62 and 64. White switches back to defending his center group with 66 and then ignores black's turn at 67 to play the large point at 68. Black makes an excellent move at 69 which exploits the bad aji at G18, white has to defend the point with 70 or black will play there and cause all kinds of trouble. See if you can work out the details for yourself (hint: Black's wedge at F16 has some intriguing possibilities).

Dia. 3

This takes us through to the end, these moves are all pretty small but notice how Shusaku ignores the threat to cut at 78 to live on the side with 79. This is bigger in terms of territory and makes the cut meaningless. After white blocks at 80 black uses sente very well, forcing at 81, 83, 85, and 87. White resigned after black 91. I'm not the best counter but no matter how I play out the endgame it seems black has a secure lead of at least a couple points.

I hope you enjoyed this game. I had a lot of fun playing through it for you. Maybe we can do another Shusaku game next week. I'll see if I can find a good one, or maybe we'll just go through the book, game by game, and see how Shusaku progresses. Till next time, ciao!

Shusaku Game#1 (Part 4)

Alright, we'll get through the middle game ko fight in detail and then I should be able to wrap up the game with the next post, thanks for following along so far. Ko can be very confusing so I broke this section down into smaller pieces so we can follow the ko fight closely. If you're just getting here you can jump to the beginning if you want to get up to speed. With that said, lets continue:

Dia. 1

Note that Black 1 = 101

White captures at 94 which reinforces his center stones and threatens to escalate the ko by cutting at R12. Black responds by turning at 95 to pressure white and white attaches at 96 which leads to a second ko, this one, unlike the other ko, is large and urgent. Black captures immediately.

Dia. 2

White 10 to the right of 7.

Black 13 at 7.

As you can see white doesn't even fight the ko but while black captures and then connects with 3 white uses 2 and 4 to link up his stones. Black cuts at 5 and white uses 6 to increase the size of the ko on the right. Black captures and white makes a ko threat at 8. After black captures white retakes the ko with 10. Black defends by falling back at 11 which firmly captures the two stones above. Now if white fills the ko at 7 black's five stones on the right will be cut off. If white fills immediately though black will jump to 12 and escape easily. Therefor white plays at 12 directly even though this allows black to retake the ko with 13. White 14 reinforces his stones and threatens to cut off and attack black's four stones on the top center. Black cuts at 15 to connect underneath to the corner and with 16 white retakes the ko.

Dia. 3

19 takes ko.

26 takes ko.

17 threatens to connect to the endangered stones so white plays 18 to respond and black retakes the ko. White 20 threatens the large black group on the bottom and black 21 is a good response. If white retakes the ko black has very large moves on the bottom and can inflict damage to the white corner in the lower right. The combination of 21, 23, and 25 make it hard to threaten the group effectively and reduce white's ko threats. Compare if black simply blocked 20 at H2 then white would retake the ko and continue to threaten this group. After 25 white retakes the ko. Black pokes at 27 and then takes the ko.

Dia. 4

47 fills ko to the right of 29

White makes a threat at 30 but black makes a very sharp decision to ignore it and attack white's bottom group. If white can build some influence towards the center then the white cut at K18 doesn't matter so much because the five black stones can easily jump to safety. After 31 and 33 white has to struggle to make eyes locally. While white eventually gets a second eye at 46 and does a little damage to the corner but there is no way to live in sente. After 31 and 33 the white threat at 30 is not looking so threatening so black takes sente to fill the ko bringing this fight to a close.

If we look at the end result white has done poorly. White had to invest an extra move at R12 to increase the value of the ko fight and that move becomes wasted now. Secondly when black connects the ko it is white who is suddenly thin in the center and white will have to jump out which will even give black time to turn to the top and answer white's ko threat. This sequence shows the incredible latent strength of Shusaku and his amazing grasp of timing. Usually one can expect to get at least some profit out of a ko fight but here white has gotten almost nothing.

Next time we'll wrap this game up, check back for the rest of the analysis.

Do You Fear Ko?

Other than the very beginning of the game no other facet of the game of Go inspires confusion like Ko. Studying Ko is a key element of becoming a decent player and a subject that I really want to dig into here. We'll keep studying fuseki but here is a quick problem. Remember: lay it out on your own board and wait until you read out the whole thing before you answer.

The 1-2 exchange is bad for black and by playing tenuki at 3 black is asking for trouble. White to attack the corner, good luck.

This is a classic problem that is good to practice your reading on. I'll give it a few days and then post the solution. Bonus points for anyone who wants to explain exactly why the 1-2 exchange is bad for black.