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Tenuki is Always an Option
   

Here is a tenuki example from the large yose, so large, in fact, that it might be played in the early middle game. It is problem 48 in the latest edition of the Small Yose Dictionary, published by the Nihon Kiin.

[Diagram]
Diag.: Large yose in the corner

Black has a nice tesuji here.


[Diagram]
Diag.: White protects

W 1 protects the corner. Later W 3 - B 6 is sente.


[Diagram]
Diag.: Tesuji (Book line)

W 6 connects.
Black takes away the corner, leaving White with a dumpling.

What is your feeling about B 7? Should Black tenuki or not?

Every yose book that I have seen that shows this tesuji has Black connect. Connecting is right locally, of course, but in fact the local temperature has dropped, and Black should probably tenuki.

In a real game, I expect that pros will tenuki when it is right to do so. But for some reason that does not get into the books, and amateurs who read those books may be misled.

How can you tell that the local temperature has dropped and that it is tenuki time? You could estimate the size of the plays, but there is an easier way. Suppose that Black tenukis after W 6 and that White later plays at 7.

[Diagram]
Diag.: After Black's tenuki

W 1 reclaims the corner. Later W 3 - B 4 is sente.[1]

Compare this diagram with the one where White protects the corner originally. In both cases White has made one more local play than Black, but in this diagram she gets 2 points less. After W 6 Black has made this relative gain, and he can take the money and run. :-)

I hope that by this time you are suspicious of W 6. If Black is going to tenuki after W 6, maybe it's not such a hot play, either. Indeed, that is the case.

[Diagram]
Diag.: Tenuki time

Here it may not be so obvious that the local temperature has dropped, but the marked stones show that both sides have made incursions into the corner, shrinking the size of what is at stake. Besides, who wants to make an ugly dumpling?

[Diagram]
Diag.: Tewari

Suppose that Black takes White's 4 stones. Then White will have lost 3 stones more than Black in the corner. If we match those stones with the 3 marked Black stones, we see that losing those stones is hardly a tragedy for White (even though Black's outer stones are working).

It is easy to get caught up in a local fight and go for all the cookies. But watch out for signs that the pie has shrunk and it's time to head for greener pastures. (I know I'm mixing metaphors, but so what? ;-))

Tenuki is always an option.

--Bill Spight


[1]

[Diagram]
Diag.: Ko

If Black is komaster he can make this ko. However, the result is to make W 1 (and Black's connection there) and White's previous connection (marked) worth a little bit less, while it makes the original play worth a little bit more. Tenuki is still normal in both cases. :-)



This is a copy of the living page "Tenuki is Always an Option" at Sensei's Library.
(C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.