Macfadyen - Budig

British Go Journal No. 62. July 1984. Page 6.

Matthew Macfadyen

This game from the fifth round of the World Championships features a number of instructive mistakes. Comments are based on a discussion of the game afterwards with Sakai 9 Dan, and on heckles by a number of other top professionals when the final life and death problem was being discussed.

Black: Stefan Budig, ?d
White: Matthew Macfadyen, 6d
The game-file in SGF format.

Figure 1 (1-86)

• Black 17: This trick play is discussed in Ishida's "Dictionary of Basic Joseki" - if white 18 is carelessly played at 19, Black wedges in between 6 and 14 and white collapses.
• Black 21: Should be 22 to avoid being shut in so thoroughly.
• 29 - 33 should all be at 34 or one point above - the space in front of whites big wall is the most important area.
• Black 41 is an overplay, he is ignoring the big wall to the right.
• White 46' should be 48 immediately - 46 gives black a chance to play 50 and get away with his overplay.
• White 76 etc. were questionable - normally White would pull out the three stones 66, 70, 74 and wait for a chance to attack one of Blacks eyeless groups. In the game variation, black is likely to be able to live in the lower right corner, after which white will be short of territory.

Figure 2a (87-102) BGJ had Fig 2a and 2b as one diagram, Fig 2.

• White 90 is a blunder - I had failed to see that 96 at 97 would be refuted by black 96. Having got this wrong, I gave up trying to attack black, and made some thickness instead. However:
• Black 99: should be at 101 - 99 is too small. After 102 the question arises as to whether black is really dead in the corner. Stefan could not work this out and decided to leave it for later, but this was wrong. The corner is completely isolated and cannot affect the rest of the game. If black tries to live now, white is obliged to try to kill him, later on it may be enough for white to let black live on a small scale. In the game Black had to resign without even finding out whether he could live or not.

Figure 2b (103-130) BGJ had Fig 2a and 2b as one diagram, Fig 2.

• Black 103 - 107: He is trying to kill the whole corner, but 106 is good (it revives some of the potential in the three cutting stones) and white lives in sente up to 130.

Black resigned.

Diagram 1

The consensus of 9 Dan opinion was that black can live. I was intending to play 4, though A might be better. After 5 white can try B or C - both are very tricky and the details are left as an exercise to the reader.

The second game from the tournament: Hirata v. Macfadyen.