Seki inside the bulky five

    Keywords: Life & Death

A seki that will probably never see the light of day...

[Diagram]

Seki



Jasonred : ... why... oh, fine, I'll indulge you. I guess that this shape can come about during poor playing when there are 3 very large kos in the game. Black plays in there, White ignores... no, wait, that's impossible too, since Black's first move kills the shape... in fact, why has Black just changed killing a group into a seki???

[Diagram]

Making seki



Bill: I doubt if this particular situation would arise on the board, but I seem to recall this shape occurring in a more complicated situation.

Charles I've found a near-miss in a pro game (Hashimoto Utaro-Iwamoto Kaoru 1936-05-31). Clearly enough the middle stone would be the final one played (otherwise Black could kill); but White's external liberties should also be filled, or White could prevent the seki by oshitsubushi. In the game I mentioned preventing the seki might have cost one point in teire.



[Diagram]

Black to live

Truc I found this problem in Encyclopedia of Life and Death. While the problem is contrived, some similar position might occur during normal play.


[Diagram]

Seki



Of course black can throw in B3 at [circled point] to make a (very bad for him) ko, but if black has any chance of gaining from that ko white would play W2 at [circled point] to make a different kind of seki.


This is a copy of the living page "Seki inside the bulky five" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2005 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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