A trick play without drawbacks
Hi everybody and welcome to this screencast.
In this screencast we would like to show a favourite trick play of Peter.
You might think: "What? a trick play?"
"Trick plays are only for bad people, and have no place in a beautiful game like go."
But studying them can actually do no harm and can teach you things about joseki, shape and fighting spirit.
One of our favourite go books is called "A compendium of trick plays" Published by the Nihon Ki-in and Yutopian in 1995.
A quote from it: "If joseki can be said to be the highway, trick plays may be called a back alley."
"When one masters the alleyways, one is on course to master joseki."
There are different kinds of trick plays. Some trick plays have a big penalty when the opponent responds correctly.
This trick play however has no drawbacks and can be played without fear.
There are also examples of professional go players who have tried this trick move.
The current position shows the start of a game between Lee Sedol and Hane Naoki, both 9dan professional.
You can download this game from the episode's bonus tab.
Now let's get started.
The trick play starts with black playing takamoku, the 5-4 point.
White's most common invasion point against the 5-4 point is at the 3-4 point.
Black has several options now.
If he wants influence rather than territory a common move is the knight move or keima.
After black's keima white attaches here to make his corner territory as big as possible.
Now A is the normal joseki move.
With black B he sets up a trick play.
Let's see the normal joseki first.
This move is natural, white pulls back.
And black connects at either A or B.
White often plays elsewhere now, but the local continuation is at A.
This is a joseki, black can also choose to play A instead of this move.
Here black can also play B. Again o18 is optional.
This is joseki, white takes territory and black creates influence.
If black wants to continue on the right side, he probably plays at A.
Let's see what we all have been waiting for. What happens when black plays the trick move, at B?
This is the beginning of the trick play.
It looks calm, but looks can be deceiving.
After this black move white has three options. A, B and C.
Which one would you play?
Let's have a look at option A first.
This move looks natural, extending along the third line.
However, it is not the right move, actually you are already tricked!
Let's see why.
Black makes a severe hane at the inside.
White has to cut, black extends, making miai of A and B.
In order to save his two stones, white extends along the right side.
Black also needs to save his two stones and jumps in good shape.
This is the only move for white.
Black connects. White tries to escape.
Now black has a big weakness at A. He needs more liberties before he can start the battle with the white stones at the top.
He can gain some in sente.
After black strenghtened himself, he attacks!
Black strikes at the vital point and cuts white into two.
White has to take the stone, which leaves black's atari on the other side.
White has no choice, but to capture.
Black finishes his cut by extending downwards.
This result is great for black. He captures the three stones and is left with a solid position and territorial profit.
White still has to settle his two weak groups.
A didn't work out too well for white.
Let's have a look at B instead.
Another response for white, which looks like a proper shape.
However, this also leads to a better position for black.
Of course black has to block here.
Forcing white to live locally in the corner and at the same time making a powerful wall on the outside.
Here many players will think about playing tenuki as black.
However, when surrounding the opponent, it's important to keep the pressure.
This move is sente. Because if white plays tenuki and allows black to play at A he barely has two eyes in the corner..
..and black will gain a lot of strenght and influence on the outside.
This would be too painful.
So white plays here. Black takes this opportunity to destroy white's eye-shape in the corner.
Tesuji!
On top of destroying white's eye-shape, this also leaves a lot of aji.
Great for black. Black's strenght on the outside is superior to white's relatively small territory in the corner.
Furthermore, black has aji left in the corner and big sente endgame at A.
Now that we have seen that both A and B are better for black. Let's see the correct answer for white.
This simple move is the right answer.
Now black can choose to answer and play at A or choose to play tenuki.
Which occured in the professional game between Lee Sedol and Hane Naoki.
See bonus tab for sgf file.
Like this we can return to joseki.
Here you can see that the trick play has no negative consequences for black.
It can even be said to more flexible than the standard joseki because of black's option to play tenuki..
..instead of this block.
This is the joseki that we showed at the beginning of the episode.
So go ahead and try this out in your own games.
We are curious to hear about your results. Thanks for watching and see you next time.