Wu Yiming's Flying Dagger

wolfking · Post by **wolfking** » Tue Aug 28, 2018 1:36 pm

What is a "Flying Dagger"? In Chinese Go speak, a Flying Dagger (Chinese: 飞刀) is a move, usually in early stage of game especially in a joseki, that is designed to surprise your opponent and gain a decisive advantage if not responded properly. This is usually a new move that has been researched extensively by the player that "throws" the dagger but has not been considered much by the general pro community. Usually after a while the Go community will settle on a outcome and the Dagger loses its surprising value, and sometimes becomes a new variation of the joseki. But often times when the dagger was first thrown, opponent will fall victim and in Chinese we say the opponent 中了飞刀, literally means he/she was hit by the flying dagger, and likely will also lose the game.

In round 1 of Jianqiao Cup Wu Yiming threw such a flying dagger, and her opponent Chu Ke'er was hit and lost the game (although Wang Lei 8p pointed out that Wu did not play the most severe sequence so Chu did not bear the full brunt of the dagger). What prompted me to write this post is that I just found that one day later Iyama played the exact same move in the Meijin title game against Cho U. It seems Cho fared much better than Chu did.

Chu Ke'er more or less recovered from the effect of the dagger but made an elementary mistake during the fight at lower left corner. After that Wu Yiming made a big sacrifice in the middle to simplify the game and won with plenty points to spare.

Here is the game record. Move 26 was the "Dagger".

sorin · Post by **sorin** » Tue Aug 28, 2018 2:58 pm

wolfking wrote: Here is the game record. Move 26 was the "Dagger".

Interesting, so Iyama Yuta used the same "dagger" against challenger Cho U yesterday, in day 1 of they first game of the Meijin title. Michael Redmond commented that it is a known move, just doesn't occur that often.

Bill Spight · Post by **Bill Spight** » Tue Aug 28, 2018 3:02 pm

The game record does not show up in my browser (Safari). Just the empty board.

Calvin Clark · Post by **Calvin Clark** » Tue Aug 28, 2018 3:17 pm

Cleaned up sgf.

EdLee · Post by **EdLee** » Tue Aug 28, 2018 4:59 pm

The game record does not show up in my browser (Safari). Just the empty board.

Despite the empty board, the Step Forward and Backward buttons are still functional.

Hi wolfking, it may be the tags [sgf-small] (yours) v. [sgf] (Calvin's).

ez4u · Post by **ez4u** » Tue Aug 28, 2018 5:10 pm

This White 26 already appeared in July (at least). Park Hyunsoo 2p used it when he upset Tuo Jiaxi in the Samsung preliminary on July 3rd.

Kirby · Post by **Kirby** » Tue Aug 28, 2018 5:47 pm

I deviate from joseki sometimes, but usually it's more like a foam nerf dart than a flying dagger...

Bill Spight · Post by **Bill Spight** » Tue Aug 28, 2018 6:13 pm

Thanks, Calvin.

Post by **Joaz Banbeck** » Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:08 am

Looking at the rest of the game...

Did black misread in the lower left? I thought that 157 at G1 saved his group.

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If he is going to sacrifice it to get a head start on attacking white's central group, why play C2? G1 would still allow the sacrificed group to hold out longer.

Uberdude · Post by **Uberdude** » Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:32 am

Joaz Banbeck wrote:Looking at the rest of the game...

Did black misread in the lower left? I thought that 157 at G1 saved his group.

Indeed she did, though f1 would by my choice to live (it's clearer in making two eyes, g1 seems to live here too but probably in some related shapes only f1 does). My guess is she thought of c2 as double sente and didn't like the prospect of living first and allowing white sente there so tried to push in sente first, overlooking that white's placement was more sente and thus killed.

wolfking wrote:Chu Ke'er more or less recovered from the effect of the dagger but made an elementary mistake during the fight at lower left corner.

macelee · Post by **macelee** » Thu Sep 13, 2018 12:22 pm

ez4u wrote:This White 26 already appeared in July (at least). Park Hyunsoo 2p used it when he upset Tuo Jiaxi in the Samsung preliminary on July 3rd.

This is where a pattern search program combined with an up-to-date game record database can be extremely useful. The move appeared to be first played by Hong Seongji 9p in Korean League on 2018-06-23, then by Xie Ke 5p in Chinese A League two days later. About a week later Park Hyunsoo 2p used it in Samsung Cup. Go4Go database so far has 15 games containing this pattern.

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Wu Yiming's Flying Dagger

Wu Yiming's Flying Dagger

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