Round Robin Ko

    Keywords: Ko, Tactics

Chinese: -
Japanese: junkan ko
Korean: -

A round robin ko is a kind of cycle, a repeating board position.

[Diagram]

Black starts the repetition.

[Diagram]

If white captures, B3 is atari...

[Diagram]

... so white counters with W2. B3, W4 follow...

[Diagram]

... and B5 starts the repetition again.

[Diagram]

If B3 at W4, white responds at B3...

[Diagram]

... the result is seki.

[Diagram]

White can also start the repetition.

The correct way to handle this situation is to figure out who will win the game as early on as possible, and then start the sequence. If you are winning the game you can force it to seki with the sequence in "If B3 at W4, white responds at B3...". If you are losing, you can continue to force the repetition, leading to a game with no result, which is marginally better than a loss. However, this is only relevant if the value of the stones involved is greater than the margin by which one player is winning; otherwise the player who is ahead can give up his/her stones in exchange for a win by a smaller margin.




This is a copy of the living page "Round Robin Ko" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2011 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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