Yep, Cho Chikun was well known for this skill, I believe. See also: Shinogi.

For living there are several ways:
-make two eyes
-escape and connect to a living group
-capture a surrounding group
-seki
-double ko
...

Either one is good for living. But for killing you have to prevent all.
Therefore I find living easier than killing. Probably this kind of thinking doesn't make any sense, but it's just a feeling

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

I'm 4 stones weaker than topazg, but we played an even game in Sunday's Cambridge Barlow tournament and he did, much to my admiration, manage to do a 3,3 invasion and die. Not die in ko - ko would, I think, have been the "right" result in the situation given the local stones - but just die. Of course, this would make me even happier if I hadn't died on the remaining three quarters of the board ...

Yes. I'm fairly good at killing groups, for my strength, even stronger players' groups. In the last three days I've killed two 3,3 invasions, one topazg's and one a 3d's (he was giving me 6 stones and resigned), both of which I think should have been ko ... unfortunately, making my own groups live doesn't go nearly as well ...

P.S. Ah, someone has explained the poll. Now I can vote. Thank you!

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My European rating.

Hard to say...

My biggest weakness is creating too many groups on the board, resulting in me having to struggle to keep everything alive, somthing that often succeeds, but almost as often fails.
This style usually does not leave a lot of time to kill my opponent's group (sometimes I kill parts to connect or escape, but I rarely make big kills in serious (tournament) games)

I guess I'm just as bad ad killing things as I am at making life. If possible I try to avoid L&D situations, though my style of making a lot of groups is not helping with that (I just think of it as good practice )

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Laurens
Go school: freegame's Teaching School
Author of: The Next Move a book for 15-3kyu players.

Haha, yeah, that was one of my better moments

Just for everyone else's amusement (I was White):

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm1
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . 6 . . .
$$ | . . 0 X . . 5 2 3 O . .
$$ | . . 8 9 . O 7 1 4 . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ -------------------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm11
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . 3 X . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . 2 1 . . . . . O . . .
$$ | 4 8 W X . . X O . O . .
$$ | . 7 O X . O X X O . . .
$$ | . 6 5 0 . . . . . . . .
$$ | . 9 . . . . . . . . . .
$$ -------------------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm21
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . X X . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . O X . . . . . O . . .
$$ | O O O X . 3 X O . O . .
$$ | . X O X . O X X O . . .
$$ | 1 O X W 2 . . . . . . .
$$ | . X . . . . . . . . . .
$$ -------------------------[/go]

Yay for L+D brainfartiness. And people wonder why I keep failing to get my EGF grade up ...

Im usually 55-45 (Kill/Live ratio), i enjoy killing more than living

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There´s always more important things than someone´s dreams.

I voted Bruce Willis, I really enjoy fights, both living and killing.

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a1h1 [1d]: You just need to curse the gods and defend.
Good Go = Shape.
Associação Portuguesa de Go

Wow topazg, that is just a brutal sequence. Your problems all started at move 10, and just kept getting worse from there.

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We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

For some reason, I thought to begin with I could connect in sente and had misread the liberties. Then, to make matters worse, I'd read bA3 towards the end as a shortage of liberties problem - I'd intended to play 22 at 23 and look at both attacking the group and the cut, but simply nothing worked. At least I gote sente for 24

Killing and living are both impossible.

...lately I seem to be a big rage machine on the go board, I can't keep myself from attempting to kill everything in sight. Every single game on KGS since I resurrected my account ended (or should have) by resignation. Admittedly, they're fast, but my slower in-person games have been the same. I'm still a stone (I'd like to think two but that's probably wishful thinking) underranked on KGS (recovering from a sleepy bad-tournament-result fueled losing streak), so right now I'm killing a lot more than I should be able to.

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

Cho Chikun is good at living in tight places, but when you mention shinogi, the first name that comes to mind (and probably the one topazg meant) is Sakata Eio.

Hmmm ... Shinogi ... interesting. I seem to lean towards this type of strategy in a number of my games. Didn't know there was a term for it.

Probably i'm better at living, but frankly i have so little confidence in my reading, that i wouldn't say i'm good at living. (But then, i wouldn't say i'm good at anything in go )

Most of the times i know that my groups are alive, or more precise, know how to make life if it is attacked. Sometimes when i overlook these things (happens too often) and my opponent takes a vital point of my groups i can somehow find a slight weakness in his surrounding stones to make a second eye.

Also i'm a fan of a more peacefull game, both players taking swings at the big points of the game, without a huge dragon-fight, so this might explain this a bit.
When i have to kill it's usually a result of me playing a moyo-game (or more precise, my opponent forcing me into a moyo-game, somehow i can't seem to prevent this), and my opponent invading the moyo "too deep". And then i try to kill the invasion.
But i have a bad experience of these fights going wrong for me, because i misread things at a crucial moment allowing him to escape or live in gote - resulting in me having not enough points to win the game or even continue. After such things i loose confidence and my fighting spirit drops, i often resign after such a failure even if i could continue the game.

Overall this leads to me having a constant fear of misreading things when i have to kill a group to win. Which may be another reason i don't enjoy killing groups as much as other people.

Easiest solution would be doing more problems, but i can't force myself to read when doing tsumego or not regulary enough for it to benefit. I seem to need the pressure of a real game to fully read a given position.

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Magics way up the hill (personal study journal)