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Beginner Exercise 4 Solution
Difficulty: Beginner
Keywords: Problem
KarlKnechtel, filling in a solution.
Quickest explanation (not at all useful to those for whom this was challenging): "1 is tesuji. 2 and 3 are miai for the kill." How I'd explain it to someone a bit below my level: "The throw-in at 1 threatens to capture the marked stone, and Black cannot connect because he is in oiotoshi - Black 2 at 3 is answered by the capture with White 3 at 2. So Black captures, making one eye; but White 3 destroys the other eye."
In easier terms: Black needs two eyes to live. There is already one virtually at a, so White must prevent the centre space from becoming an eye. The sacrifice changes the shape of that space, achieving the goal. This problem is small enough that we can consider all the alternatives:
Playing elsewhere is answered by Black either at a or b. (b claims an extra point of territory, at the expense of a ko threat for White. The play at a is safe from that, as I'd originally thought, but I managed to confuse myself somehow. Thanks SAS. :) Anyway - see Points Or Ko Threats Discussion for more information about that sort of tradeoff. ) So clearly white has to do something. (Incidentally, the eye around a is an example of what I call a two-space elbow. Not that it really matters.)
One try is to threaten the existing eye; but the capture solves all of Black's problems. (Connecting at a would be very bad for Black; White doesn't even have to capture.) This is also a throw-in, but it's the wrong one and doesn't help.
Moving to make the other eye false looks good at first, because Black is in atari to start off with. But all Black has to do is connect. Again, the two eyes are solid.
I'm new to Go but enjoying learning about it a lot. The above confuses me a little. Could someone explain why the sequence 1, 2, 3 isn't good for White? Is it that White would really have played 2 at 3 resulting in a ko? --DaveFinlay Answer: White 3 is a forbidden move now. It is placing a stone at a point without any liberties while not capturing any stones. Thanks. I don't know what I was thinking. DaveFinlay I'm really new to Go (just started learn last week). I'm a little confused about the terminology "played 2 at 3". What does that mean? I guess that 2 is same as the numbered black stone, but what does "at 3" mean? Confused: It's a convenient shorthand for describing simple variations of a diagram. Black 2 at 3 means, the situation if Black would have played the second move (Black 2) at the location of the White stone at 3. Here Karl Knechtel was writing about the following case.
Jasonred (I think) wrote: Confused: It's a tesuji, although I'm not sure if that play counts as nakade too. If the definition on the nakade page is correct, I'd say it isn't one. This is one of the reasons, why I avoid throwing around japanese terms I don't understand completly or for which there is a good english translation. Some of those concepts are complicated enough on their own, that I don't need to confuse the matter more with the wrong japanese names.
This is a copy of the living page "Beginner Exercise 4 Solution" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |