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Migeru's Question 2
Difficulty: Advanced
Keywords: Joseki
This is a strange joseki from a game with jsha on NNGS. I would like some comments from someone who knows what they're doing.
I was very surprised by Black 4.
I wonder whether I should have played 9 at a. As it turned out, Black ended up losing the corner. Bill: How about White 9 at b? Play around with it.
Migeru - Let's see...
Black 1 captures in semeai. White 2 threatens to play at 3. Black 3
White 4 Not at a!
Now what for Black? Jasonred : I thought the same thing! (that's what I would do here). But then I read his line about the semeai, so I thought, oh, that's not so good, I must have misread it. Bill, could you read out the sequence for us? Bill: Hint: White threatens a and b.
Black's marked stone in the top right breaks the ladder, so White does lose the semeai. However, White can still get a local advantage. First, she adds a third stone (White 5) as a sacrifice. Charles How about White 7 at 9 here? Black is unlikely to answer at a, early in the game. Bill: Oh, I don't know about that, Charles. Which do you prefer as Black?
Black 5 fills at the marked stone. (This shibori is better for White than the suggested sequence.)
Black 1 secures the corner and halfway saves the marked stone, but is not as strong towards the left side.
Charles Well, if White wants to treat Black at w as gote now, perhaps play 4 at p and invite Black to treat the lower side as a fighting area (rather than open-skirted). That way White's moves like r or s might come into the game. I don't suppose it's a case of absolute judgement here.
Bill: Well, considering Black's strength on the left side, I think that the cut is premature, anyway. :-)
White's corner stones, having eye-shape, do not require an extension, but White 1 is a good play.
I think White should extend along the lower side after Black 8. In effect, Black will have exchanged the two marked black stones against the two white ones. White's gain in thickness is worth much more than Black's attempt at enclosing the corner, especially because of the cut at a. Any black attempt to save the stone will only be welcomed by White, since it means that Black is taking gote again for just a few points. Furthermore, the sequence Black 1 to Black 5 also gives Black a shortage of liberties, making the cut at a even more dangerous - Andre Engels
I think it's probably a mistake to try to cut Black 4 off at all. How about White 5 here? If Black now plays at a, White slides up the left side to b. (If Black blocks at c, of course White plays a and 4 is captured.) This depends upon how important the lower side is to Black, but White 1 has aji in any case. Andrew Grant
This line might be useful for White on occasion. But isn't it rather a thin way to play, in general? Black has in reserve the threat of Black a, White b, Black c. That has consequences, for example for Black closing off the side at e: it looks like White will want to play at d, and the outside stone will be weakened.
To contrast with that, isn't White relatively thick here, simply adding the marked stone as extension? Of course it depends a bit on the overall position. But I don't see this as a real victory for Black. Charles Matthews DaveSigaty: What was the overall position?
Migeru: Gee, Dave, do you want to embarrass me (and possibly jsha) with my (our) fuseki of 8 weeks ago? My guess is that I was just going through the motions: approach-slide-extend.
White 11 at a, Black 12 tenuki. Dave: No need to worry about embarrassing yourself. If we are not embarrassed about something in each game we play, we just haven't bothered to look at it honestly yet (at least this is 100% true for my games :-)
With the upper side wall, Black 2 is a nice attempt to squeeze a little extra out of the position compared to a "normal" one-space jump for example. At the same time it is inevitably thin. White should not be eager to cause Black to strengthen this position. Therefore instead of the slide at 3, White might have simply played b. This indirectly exposes the thinness of Black 2. Against the 1-b position Black normally looks forward to invading at c. If he does so here, however, his thin position on the left will be threatened more by any thickness White builds in the center. He may come to wish that he had played the stronger one-space jump instead. Three Slides
Black ends up overconcentrated. In current professional play, Black will often play tenuki instead of answering at 2.
There is debate in modern practice over whether White should exchange 1 for 2 although this was considered completely natural in the past. See changing fuseki dogmas
This undoubtedly fixes up the thinness of Black's initial play.
Looked at differently, if the marked stones were already on the board, where would Black prefer to play next: a, b, or c?
It seems to me that White can be satisfied with this result. Since there are still defects in Black's left side, I would be interested to know whether you were able to invade the left later in the game. Let's see - Migeru
Black 126 at a, White 127 at b
I was just playing kikashi to try and live... and I got a snapback out of it.
White 11: I was too busy setting up a snapback in the upper left to see that I needed to protect against Black 12 at the marked stone. Moved from Migeru. This is a copy of the living page "Migeru's Question 2" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |