Beginner Exercise 128 / Solution

White first to kill.  

Karl Knechtel: I believe is correct. at b is answered by at c, and b cannot capture three to make an eye - it's a matter of white's liberties rather than black's lack of them, however.

White connects out, Black fails to make eyes (variation)  

at .

White is persistent  

With black cutting/trying to capture at c, as shown, white applies the same technique on the other side. Now there is a shortage of liberties situation which prevents black from cutting on this side.

White is persistent (continued)  

White gets to connect whatever black tries, and the best black can do is get a couple of simple kos on top, but these are not life.

White is persistent (variant)  

Of course the throw-in of does no good either. Now the a points are miai to kill, producing results from the previous diagrams.

Failure

Failure.  

Attaching at is not so good. After , the result is a ko, not as good as a direct kill.