Bill Spight's opening exercise with Elf 1 / Solution

[Diagram]

Gospel

As per Leela Zero's Opening Gospel any of the corner reinforcements marked a will do.

[Diagram]

A play with threats

W6 is the human textbook answer. The reason for not playing at a, is that White has a follow-up at W8 which makes a base, and which also has a follow-up at W10. The reasoning is sound about choosing plays that have good follow-ups that also have good follow-ups. However, I doubt if any of today's top bots give W6 more than a few rollouts.

Not that W6 is an error. It probably loses a few percentage points to any bot's choice of play, but not enough to make it a clear mistake. It's just that the bots do not value the sides as highly as they do the corners.


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