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Vital Point
Keywords: Life & Death, Tactics, Go term
The vital point of a group is the point where you want to play in order to assure life for that group. BillSpight: There are also vital points for making shape, for connecting, for killing, etc. Often the vital point for one player is a vital point for the other, as well.
The vital point of this white group is a. You can explore nakade to find out more about vital points.
If you are confused by or find it difficult to see where the 'vital point' in a shape is, try to look at the internal space left over after the opponent has reduced the internal space from the outside. In this case, after Black's reduction (from the outside) and White's answer, the internal eyespace will be the circled points - which is recognisable as the bulky five - and the vital point is the same as for a bulky five. (Anyway, it often helps me, maybe others have better/easier ways of seeing this --MortenPahle) Here is another attempt for a systematic approach for finding the vital point, if your eye isn't trained to see it on the spot.
This position is taken from Kanazawa Problem 25. White to live. Let's try to make a one-point eye with as few moves as possible.
Adding two stones.
Adding two stones.
Adding three stones.
Adding three stones.
Looking back at the reference diagram, points a and b occur in three of the four diagrams. Both are vital points, but a is slightly more valuable than b, because a occurs in both diagrams with two stones. This reasoning can easily be quantified. This is a copy of the living page "Vital Point" at Sensei's Library. (C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0. |