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Under The Stones
  Difficulty: Beginner   Keywords: Tesuji, Life & Death

A play 'Under The Stones' is a tesuji where you plan to play in a space which has become free because some of your own stones have been captured.

[Diagram]
Diag.: Black can live 'Under the stones'

In this example, black needs to 'temporarily sacrifice' some stones in order to live.


[Diagram]
Diag.: Black lives 'Under the stones'

[Diagram]
Diag.: Black lives 'Under the stones' (cont.)

Black cannot take white 6, that would leave him with a false eye after white plays 7. Black plans to let white capture 1 and 5.


[Diagram]
Diag.: Black lives 'Under the stones'

Once white has captured, black can cut with 1 and he makes his second eye because the two white stones are caught.

-- MortenPahle (10kyu)


[Diagram]
Diag.: Black lives 'Under the stones'

I figured I'd throw in the resulting moves, for the novice players (like myself). -FCS


[Diagram]
Diag.: Black lives 'Under the stones'

If white plays at either 'a' or 'b', black should respond with the other. If white plays 'c', black should capture at 'a'. If white plays 'd', black should reinforce 'c'. 'a' and 'b' now become miai for black.

AndreEngels: Minor correction: After white 'a', black 'd' also works, and makes two points of territory more than black 'b'.


[Diagram]
Diag.: White plays 'a', Black 'b'

Wow! You're right. I completely missed that. In fact it took me a couple minutes to understand why it's better. So I guess I'll write it out for all us novices.

To the left you'll see the 'b' response. Black ends up with two spots of territory and one captured piece. A total of 3.


[Diagram]
Diag.: White plays 'a', Black 'd'

White 3 necessitates 4...


[Diagram]
Diag.: Black has 5 points

Leaving this configuration. If we stop now, black has three points of territory and captured pieces (total of 5). 'a' and 'b' are now miai for black, and either of those plays will still yield 5 points.

Nifty!

-FCS



I love this tesuji so much, that I can't resist the temptation to talk about some variations on the same idea. The only difference is the shape of the four sacrificed stones, which isn't square.

Nando

[Diagram]
Diag.: Basic example

Black to kill.

[Diagram]
Diag.: Forcing White to live !

B 1 would be a terrible blunder of course, since it would almost force W to live with 2.

[Diagram]
Diag.: Tesuji !

B 1 is the real suji here. W has no choice but to capture the 4 black stones with 2 if she wants to get a chance to make a second eye. But ...

[Diagram]
Diag.: Game over

... B 3 annihilates White's hope and the whole white group dies.

For my very own pleasure (and your's I hope), I'd like to propose you 2 simple and beautiful tsumego problems (from a chinese book) illustrating this tesuji:

[Diagram]
Diag.: Problem 1

Black to kill.

SolutionUnderTheStonesProblem1

[Diagram]
Diag.: Problem 2

Black to live.

SolutionUnderTheStonesProblem2

I'll create the solution pages in a couple days, if nobody else has done the job before (which I doubt ;) )


Here is my favorite under the stones problem to date. It is from a nice life and death book by Go Seigen (in Chinese). I got it through Yutopian. This is the book's first problem. -- Matt Noonan


[Diagram]
Diag.: Problem 3

Black to live.

SolutionUnderTheStonesProblem3



This is a copy of the living page "Under The Stones" at Sensei's Library.
(C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.