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Unsettled Three
Difficulty: Beginner
Keywords: Tesuji, Life & Death
When a unit only has three interior spaces in a row for eyes, it is unsettled. In both cases in the diagram, if white plays at the marked spot she'll live. If black plays there, white will die.
Now we get to the intended topic... If you can create a shape inside the eyespace of your opponent which, after capture, leaves your opponent with a dead big eye, you will kill your opponent's group. The marked space is the problem. If white doesn't capture there, she'll die next turn.
But if she captures with 1, black plays 2, killing the group.
In fact, already here, white is dead. In general, a four-space big eye which has two stones in it is dead. (Actually, it depends where the stones are.)
On a related subject, the presence of cutting points or other weaknesses can be used to reduce a four-space big eye to a three-space and hence dead shape. Obviously, white shouldn't even respond to black 1, as her group is dead as it stands. Similarly, other and larger seemingly live eyespaces can be reduced because of the presence of weaknesses. See Nakade for an example of such a (very) large eyespace which at the end only gives one eye. This is a copy of the living page "Unsettled Three" at Sensei's Library. (C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0. |