Spot The Move - Answers

British Go Journal No. 65. July 1985. Page 26.

Richard Granville

The problems for these solutions are on page 8 of BGJ 64.
This month's problems are on page 5.

Richard Granville analyses the answers of our panel of experts to the competition in last month's issue.

BGJ had a summary of replies for each problem listed here. It has been split to put each summary with the relevant problem. The original article used coordinates (such as K10) for most of this article. It has been altered to use marked up diagrams for the EBGJ.

Problem 1 - Marks

Marks for various black moves.

Diagram 1

Problem 1 - Commentary

Diagram X1

Panelists replies:

• F - Jeff Ansell 2k
• G - Andrew Daly 3d
• H - Toby Manning 2d
• J - Matthew Macfadyen 6d
• H - Francis Roads 3d
• H - Piers Shepperson 3d
• K - John Smith 2d

Most panelists agreed on one aspect of this problem.

Ansell: "Black's group in the lower right lacks eyes."

However there was less agreement about what, if anything, Black should do to save his group, and what White might gain by attacking it.

Manning: "Black is ahead on territory (the white enclosure in the top left is invadeable) and should win provided white does not make a lot of territory in the centre. The only way he can do this is by attacking the black group in the lower right."

Roads: "Black wants to reduce the large upper left moyo (territorial framework). However white may tenuki to attack... with D. Black gets a floating group and is unlikely to end in sente, so white will be able to return to the upper left to answer."

Diagram 2 White D

Macfadyen: "White surely cannot kill the black group, and if he tries to make territory while attacking, as for exaple in Dia 2, his ponnuki becomes overconcentrated." (The 'ponnuki' is the stones in Dia X1 W, X, Y & Z - a very strong shape -m Ed.)

Most of the other panelists, however, wanted to add a stone to the lower right group. Smith wanted to lean on the left with K, Daly to cut at G. But the consensus was to leave both of these options for later and simply extend to H.

This seems to show a rather nervous approach to the position, which I disagree with (although the marks have been allocated according to the panelists' votes).

Diagram 3 Black J

And what about the left side? Macfadyen provides some analysis.
"Both sides have excellent moves heer. Black 1 in Dia 3 is hard to answer. If white plays B, Black can live in the corner, leaving white ludicrously overconcentrated. So white had better play 2. Now black can play 3 or C (I prefer 3) and white's territory is much too small."

" If black fails to play this corner, white A will mean that black 1 is killed by B and that white can invade black's side. Black 1 must be played now. There are other ways to play in this corner (just black A for example), but they all look pretty flabby compared with my variation."

Roads also felt that A was not completely satisfactory, and wanted to probe at M or N first "in case a better way of reducing the moyo emerges". The other point with a score, at P, was suggested by Macfadyen as a possible kikashi - forcing move - to strengthen the lower right group indirectly (by weakening white's stones), while grabbing a big yose point.

This problem arose in my game against John Smith in the 1984 Challengers League, when I played C. Although this is ne of the moves described as 'flabby' it does at least seem to be in the right direction (white answered at R). When white gained sente he used it to invade at S, so he obviously did not consider it worthwhile to attack the lower right.

The answer to problem 2 can be found on page 27.