Beginner Exercise 166 / Solution

Coup de grace  

Failure

Seki  

VanEvery - Shouldn't Black play at instead? Since the status is settled after , it seems a complete waste to put a third move into this. What is the value of where it is?

unkx80: Do you understand seki?

Cabbage?: unkx80's reply is kind of unhelpful here. To answer VanEvery's question, if black plays at then white plays at and makes two eyes. is therefore best where it is.

Dieter: This is a failure diagram. It serves to show that Black does not kill White this way but achieves at most seki. Discussing the merits of and is irrelevant for this problem, since was wrong to start with and - are merely the functional follow-up to the mistake was.