Interpolis Match - Game 3

British Go Journal No. 67. April 1986. Page 24.

Game 2 is on page 22.

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Black: Ronald Schlemper
White: Yong-Su Yoo
Komi: 6
The game-file in SGF format.

Figure 1 (1-50)

• White 6: This move sparks off a joseki which is to have a significant bearing on the outcome of the game. Schlemper claimed this move is not playable, given black's strong position bottom right, since it gives black the ideal opportunity to play the fearsomely complicated 'Taisha' ('great slant') joseki with 7.
• Black 17: An alternative to the traditional 'main line' of 1 in Dia 1. This diagram shows why Schlemper condemns white 6 in Fig 1. White's stones are forced to flee towards black's strong position, violating a fundamental principle of Go (stay away from strength – your own and your opponent's). Yoo, however, believed 6 was perfectly playable. He intended to follow Dia 2. This move sacrifices two stones, but allows white to expand the upper side in sente. White also retains various forcing moves around A [in Dia2] to help him invade the right side later.
• White 20: Only possible if the ladder starting from 1 in Dia 3 is favourable. If White plays 20' at A [in Fig 1], Black follows Dia 4.
• White 22: Condemned as an outright blunder by Dutch commentators. The point is, that after black 23 and 25, white, it seems, must play at 26 to prevent black cutting across at A, and falls virtually a move behind instead, the continuation in Dia 5 is an improvement given by the commentators. Black's corner is smaller, and White's group, thanks to the sacrifice stones, gets better eye shape. It is interesting to note, however, that 22 is given as standard in Ishida's Dictionary of Basic Joseki (Vol 2 page 178), with the continuation D, E, 27. Ishida's ghost writer notes that white replies to black B with C.
  A Japanese joseki book also gives Dia 6 as very slightly better for White – but of course there are no black stones waiting in the bottom right. Finally, Dia 7, where white plays 4 instead of A is also adjudged very slightly better for White, while white 8' at B is given as another possibility – White's move in the game. What does all this prove? Certainly that book judgements have to be taken in context; but maybe also that there's more to this position than meets the eye.
• Black 33: An ideal move: an extension from a shimari that attacks White's stones.
• White 34: Too slow. Better at 35 to prevent black's double wing extension, and offer long distance succour to the right side group.
• White 36: Again slow, but this time absolutely necessary. Imagine a black move on this point.
• Black 39-43: A standard sequence. Black takes root in white's corner. But white 46 is again slow. It keeps black eyeless, and is worth quite a few points. But better is 50 immediately, since black 49 is an excellent point.

Diagram 1

Diagram 2

Diagram 3

Diagram 4

Dia 4. After 1 and 3, Black makes the severe two-step hane. If White just connects now, so will black, and his outer thickness is overwhelming. This position actually happened in the famous 'ear- reddening' game between Shusaku, 'The Saint of Go' and Gen'an inseki in 1846.

Diagram 5

Diagram 6

Diagram 7

Figure 2 (51-121)

• Black 53-67: Another standard sequence. 67 strengthens Black's group, and makes 75 sente. White is now in difficulty, with two weak groups on the board.
• White 68: Too straightforward. A better try is to peep at 78, then comes black 80, white 79, black A, white B. Yoo felt he would have still had a chance after that.
• Black 77: Good play. He calmly strengthens his last weak group, giving white no chance to start a fight. White in the meantime has many urgent points he wants to play (eg 94, 96, C, etc).
• White 78-88: A desperate attempt nonetheless to create a group to attack.
• White 96-98 seals off a large territory, and injects some bad aji into black's positions at the top. But leaves himself with two chronic groups...
• White 102: The decisive mistake, since it makes 103 an ideal splitting attack. Better is to play at 150, when black has no obvious point of attack.
• Black 109: White's right hand group is looking ever sicker.

Figure 3 (121-199) 138 at 130, 154 ko at 148. [BGJ omitted 138 & 154. Best guess used here.] [BGJ used 1-79 for 121-199. EBGJ uses 21-99 for these moves.]

• Black 127: A mistake. If Black plays first at 132 the game is over, since White's sequence 128-138 no longer works and his centre group probably dies.
• Black 139: The coup de grace. In the moves to 158 white saves a part of his group and defends his lower left side, thanks mainly to the fact that black plays safe and doesn't carry out his ko threat after 156. White then succeeds in the sequence up to 182 in capturing some black stones. But even this leaves him behind (try counting the score). So he makes a last desperate attempt to pull something off in black's corner.
• Black 195: Almost a costly blunder. Should be at 196, when white's tricks are exhausted. But if White now plays 196' at 198, a direct ko for the life of white's group results – see Dia 8.

Diagram 8 6 ko at , 13 at 8, 17 at 8, 18 at 11, 19 ko at [BGJ annotation erroneous, fixed in EBGJ.]

White resigns after 199.

Discussion of game 4 & 5 results omitted.

Game 6 is on page 27.