Life In 19x19

I met Fukang in Beijing when he was studying there. At that time everyone called him Zheng Fukang, to add some confusion..

whoops, tired and misunderstood your post. agree with dhu on reread

before extending, block is black's sente because capturing 2 stones would stabilize the weak group

after extending, white's extend is now sente because it threatens the black group

edit: also it's not aji keshi because there's nothing interesting in the corner anyway

Some tewari analysis:

$$B
$$------------------------
$$| . . . . . . . . . . .
$$| . . . . . . . . . . .
$$| . . . . 2 . . . . . .
$$| . . 1 . . 6 . 4 . . .
$$| . . . 3 . 5 a . . . .
$$| . . . . . b . . . . .
$$| . . . . . . . . . . .

(Later, or now, White exchanges a for b).

1-2-3 is of course ...

This is a tangent from the main discussion, but I saw this diagram and couldn't resist.

$$B
$$ -------------------------------
$$ | X X X X X X X X X X X O . . .
$$ | X X X X X X X X X X X O . . .
$$ | X X X X X X X X X X X O . . .
$$ | X X X X X X X X X X X O . . .
$$ | X X X X X X X X X X X O ...

Thanks for the very interesting statistics and commentary, John. If (and only if) you have the time and motivation, I would love to see a sample position or two in which 紧 is used. Or maybe it is so common that it applies to pretty much all good play?

It is interesting, after seeing this ...

it makes g1 into sente, in sente

$$c Black to play.
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . O O O O . O . X . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O O X X X O X . . . . . . . X . a |
$$ | . . O X . . . X . X . . X . . X . O . |
$$ | . . O X . O . . . . . . . . . . 5 7 8 |
$$ | . . X X ...

For human players (with limited abilities compared to AI), there are other things to consider when faced with a choice like this in a real game, such as:

- How confident are you about reading deeply and accurately?
- How good is your positional judgement?
- How do you feel about your endgame ...

...

$$Wc The tight defense, white extends. Black is small and ugly ...

$$Wc The tight defense, white extends. Black is small and ugly ...

Black to play an eye-popping move.

@Uberdude
Hum, ok. This one, then:
$$Bcm27 Black to play
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O O . O O . . X . O . . O . . . . |
$$ | . . X , . X . . . , . . . . . , X . . |
$$ | . . X O O ...

To those who would play the top right: consider the tewari
$$Bcm27 Black to play
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O O . O O . . X . O . . O . . . . |
$$ | . . X , . X . . . , . . . . . , X ...