Episode #65 Cut your losses
Hi everybody and happy Easter! Today we will look at some eggs.
And also we will review a game that was sent to us by one of our pro-members: Henrique Morimitsu.
Henrique is a 1dan player on KGS. His name on KGS is Lerion. And he lives in São Paulo, Brazil.
He has been studying and playing go for about 8 years and he plays as white in this game.
He told us that during the game he felt that he was behind most of the time. And he didn't really know why.
So let's have a look.
His opponent that plays black is also a 1dan.
This first move by Henrique can be compared to the position from Kajiwara's book [Direction of Play].
In his book, Kajiwara shows this white move in the chapter [The Second Move lost the Game]. That's quite a drastic title.
But in this chapter Kajiwara shows that when black can approach here, it works well together with the rest of his stones, so with the marked black stones.
And white feels behind from the start.
In the game that Henrique played this can not be called a bad move, but white should be prepared for this black [hoshi] if he plays at [A].
This is also what happened in the game. And then black approaches the corner. And this move works well together with the black marked stone.
This move, this pincer, was (we think) the first mistake of the game.
It is possible to play it, some professionals have tried it in this position, but it's unusual.
White creates a busy position for himself. The pincer stone, this white stone, is almost sure to come under attack.
And that is because in the nearby corner at [A] black already has a stone. And it is not white that has a stone.
In this case white has a stone in the nearby corner. And in such a position it's much more usual to play this white pincer. Because white has a back-up in the form of [A].
So here the pincer by white is a bit dubious.
And in the game black played here, which is a good move.
But black can also play more simply. He can play this simple jump, which aims to pincer white's stone.
So white also plays on the side to protect and then black can attack here. It's a severe pincer and white already feels a bit uncomfortable.
So that's why usually white doesn't play this pincer in the fuseki, when black has a stone at [A].
So in the game a joseki was played, like this.
This is all fine. It's a good sequence.
And after that black pincered. This is a good pincer to attack the single white stone and white feels behind already.
If only by a bit. And eventhough white feels behind it is important to cut your losses at this point.
It is probably best to consider the white stone as aji and leave it.
Both Peter and me would play tenuki. So first let's see what happened in the game.
White played here and he made a mistake we think, because he creates a week group for himself and he will have to face the consequences the rest of the game.
And his group was being attacked and got under pressure.
So we think it's probably better for white to play tenuki. For example at the lower side, like this.
And white can consider the move at [A] as big aji.
If black tries to capture it, this is a nice forcing move for white. Black has to respond, otherwise white can escape.
For example, if black plays here at the lower side, white can go through by cutting. This creates a miai situation for white.
And he can sacrifice the two stones and slice through black's position.
This is quite painful.
So here black has to respond.
Instead of playing here, white can also invade on the left side, like this.
This aims at moves like [A], [B] or [C], which also uses the aji of the one white stone.
So there is still a lot of aji in the stone at [A].
Instead of trying to capture the white stone, black can also play on top here. And it's another possibility, but white can still go out with this keima, which is also still very big aji.
Later in the game white can play like this and he escapes. So if we go back a little bit, in this position it is best for white to play tenuki.
This is all because black has a stone at [A].
If white would have stones around [A] the story is completely different.
Here for example white has stones at [A] and [B].
Now this jump feels much better because the black stone at [A] is also under pressure.
However, black is also playable because black gets this big move.
So even in this position it's best not to play this jump but for example to play here for white.
And after that black can jump. We like this for white, but it's a normal position.
So let's go back to the game. In the game Henrique jumped here, which was a minor mistake.
This is a good push by black. Pushing from behind is usually bad, but black needs to make sure that white does not connect easily, so here it's actually a good move.
This peep is also very good. Black makes white heavy.
And after that black pushes again, which feels natural.
In the game white played here. We think that this is a bit slow. But where would white play instead? Do you have any ideas?
You can consider this to make eyeshape. But this will help black to get stronger in this position.
Black can play this contact-play and white has to keep investing stones in the position. Black becomes very strong on the lower side but white also doesn't look that weak anymore and he can make a base.
We think that black's strength is a little bit better than white's eyeshape and white also feels a little bit cramped.
So instead of this, maybe white can jump. We think that this is the proper move.
If black connects here, white can jump away with this nice shape point.
If black first peeps and then plays the hane and connects, white can jump here.
It's a little bit different but white still feels quite comfortable.
So in the game white played here and black played a nice jump.
And white also needs to jump away but we think that this jump, which is normally the correct shape, feels a bit dangerous in this position.
That's because the black marked stones are very close to white's shape, so white needs to be careful.
For example, black can cut like this.
And he gets something whilst attacking white, which feels nice.
Black can also, instead of cutting, play on this side. It's maybe even better. And black also played this a little bit later in the game. It's a very nasty shape point and it feels like white doesn't have a good move.
So this jump doesn't feel good.
This jump looks more natural, because it's a little bit further away from black's strength. But also here there is still big cutting aji with this move.
Playing like this feels natural, but when black retreats white still has cutting points and it's a miai situation.
If white connects here then black will cut his stones into two.
So this doesn't feel so nice, this is not good either. Maybe it's best to just play a one space jump, a simple jump.
However, now you can see that the move at [A] by white was very slow and a little bit superfluous.
It would be better not to play at [A] and to jump immediately. Like this.
So after this move, in the game, black played this double hane. Which is a nice move. It's also a kind of testing move.
And white responded wrongly in the game. White played this cut, which is wrong because it helps black to protect his cuttingpoint at [A].
In this case, which is the game, black got a free move at [A] which helps a lot to attack white's floating group.
After that black could play this point, which we just saw, and white is under a lot of pressure.
So instead of cutting here, it's best to just defend on the third line. Black still needs to come back to fix and then white can play on this point!
White will not play at [A] now ofcourse, because it's small. This white jump is the vital point for his weak group.
If he jumps away he is safe, and if black plays here white is under attack.
So this was, well it looks like a small mistake, but it was actually quite a big mistake. Because it all depends on who gets this move.
Here white gets the move when he plays correct and in the game black got the move, which left white in a very bad position.
After this nice cut by white, black also played a very strong move. He just extended here.
And after that he gave atari. It's a nice sacrificing technique to keep white sealed in.
Taking this stone is not necessary and it's a bad move. Because white can play on the outside. And he is one step ahead in the fight for the centre.
White is one step ahead, but ofcourse the result is still good for black. However, in the game white didn't play this. White connected.
This is a very slow move. White doesn't need this one stone. He doesn't need to defend it. It's better to go into the centre.
Because in this case black gets the chance to play at the same point and now black is ahead in the running fight.
This black move is also very big. Let's take a moment to assess the position.
White's group at [A] is still weak.
And if we look at black's stones that black got in the centre, they all do something. They have a purpose. They either make strength or they make territory.
So from this position, if we look at this we can see that white made mistakes on the left side.
Here white played a very nice move. It's a good choice. When black has a double wing formation, the [san-san] move is always a good move.
Here we will stop the review and we hope you liked this episode about the fundamentals in the opening.
Thanks for watching and see you next time.