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Approaching A Life And Death Problem The Right Way
   

You know when you are dealing with a life and death problem if you ask yourself either one of the following questions:

  • Can I kill his group?
  • Would there be a way she can kill my group?

In order to answer these questions, it is a good habit to work systematically through all the possible moves that may work. I seem to recall it was some Kobayashi Koichi book or article that recommended the following order:

Isolate the group from the center

If the group still has access to the center, it has a possibility to link up to friendly forces.

Reduce the eye space of the group under attack

The classic example is a hane, hence the proverb that there is death in the hane.

Look at the cuts

If there is a defect remaining in the group under attack, it may become a good deal easier to kill it if you manage to divide it into separate pieces.

Placements

The rationale is that the placement will mess up the shape of the group under attack. However if you start with this technique, the group under attack may still have options of running to the center or becoming a bigger group, i.e. a group with more space to create eyes. This is why you should first look at isolating it and reducing the eye space.

--Stefan



The professional approach vs the amateur approach

To solve tsumego or real game problems, there is the professional approach as opposed to the amateur approach.

Amateurs have more or less the following approach:

Suppose we are to solve a tsumego

  1. We look for the vital point
  2. We look for a sequence, including the vital point, that kills or makes life
  3. If we have found a sequence, we verify the branches of that sequence to see if it really works
  4. We take that sequence as the solution

In a real game, when our group is threatened, it goes something like this

  1. We try to decide whether the group lives
  2. If it lives, we mostly leave it
  3. If it can live, we mostly play at the vital point in order to live
  4. If we are not sure about its status, we mostly add an extra defensive move
  5. If we have left it, we regularly come back to the problem to verify its status

The professional approach is very different, or so I have been told

Suppose they are to solve a tsumego. They

  1. Take all possible moves into account, starting with the one most likely to be the best (the vital point)
  2. Explore each move, with all of its branches, successively, and evaluate the result (life/death, points gained, remaining aji, sente/gote)
  3. Take the sequence with the best result as the solution

In a real game, when their group is threatened, they

  1. Take all possible moves into account, starting with the one most likely to be the best (the vital point)
  2. Explore each move, with all of its branches, successively, and evaluate the result (life/death, points gained, remaining aji, sente/gote)
  3. Measure the local result against the global position

For one thing, professionals have exactly the same approach to tsumego as to real game situations. For another, a professional reads until he knows exactly what is going on (locally) and knows the meaning of each move in each of the branches. Finally, once the problem has been read out, a pro never returns to verify the status. He'll only continue to perform the third step (weighing local result/global position) regularly.

We could try at least the professional approach in tsumego. If you continue to explore each possibility, even if you have found a solution, then you'll be surprised to find sequences that do the same thing as the one you already found, but with a better result in terms of points or aji. Moreover, exploring all moves, also the ones that don't work, does a great deal to your reading skills and your knowledge of shape.

--DieterVerhofstadt



This is a copy of the living page "Approaching A Life And Death Problem The Right Way" at Sensei's Library.
(C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.