BillSpightsElfPositionalJudgmentExercises/Game 10 ELF's Solution

Elf's continuation of the game  

Black plays sente against the White corner and then plays a shoulder hit against White's orphan in the top right. White bolsters his center group and then Black puts pressure on the White group on the top side.

Elf's continuation of the game, II  

invades the bottom right corner. After Black's advantage seems fairly apparent to me.

Earlier play.

Loss of 10½%  

The natural looking loses 10½% according to Elf.

BTW, when I say that a move loses a certain percentage, I mean by comparison with Elf's recommended play, not with Elf's winrate estimate of the previous position, as is often the custom with other comentators.

Elf's mainline variation for  

Black tenukies to probe the bottom left corner, leading to a complicated fight.

Elf's mainline variation for II  

White secures a large corner in exchange for outside strength.

Elf's mainline variation for III  

Then White makes a ko in the top left.

Elf's recommended variation for  

After the clamp of in the top left, encloses the top right corner. Then invades the bottom right corner, leading to Black building a large sphere of influence on the right side into the center. makes a shoulder hit against the top right corner, and starts a large scale attack against . Bear in mind that Elf considers this around 10% worse for Black than the previous variation. :)

loses 25%  

After loses 10½% returns the favor in spades, losing 25%, a real blunder. :blackeye: was the 3-3 attachment in the top left corner. Elf agrees with that choice of plays.

Elf's mainline after  

We have already seen Elf's recommendation for , the attachment at C-15. This variation shows Elf's recommended continuation for White after the blunder of .

cuts off the 3-3 stone. is played as a sacrifice. makes some strength on the top side in exchange for the corner sacrifice.

Elf's mainline after II  

Next White bolsters his center and then nails down the top left corner. Then Black leans on the bottom left corner to strengthen his group on the left.

Loss of 11%  

A little later in the game, Elf thinks that the solid connection, , loses 11% by comparison with a.

Kikashi first  

Elf says to play this kikashi first. When you see it, it looks kind of obvious. I doubt that Miyashita overlooked this. The bots seem to be less concerned than humans about aji keshi. ;)

Elf's recommended play after  

In the game was played at a. Elf prefers the jump in the center by 1%, which is well within any margin of error, but I thought that this variation was of interest. To my mind, leaving the four White stones just sitting there is almost an admission that White's recent play in the center was erroneous.