Question on if this is seki

tacttic · Post by **tacttic** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 4:42 pm

I was working through the problems on 321go.org and ran into this.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$ $$ | . . . . . . . . $$ | . X . . . . . . $$ | . . X X X . . $$ | X X O O O X . . $$ | O O O . O X . . $$ | X . O O X . X . $$ | . X X O X . . . $$ ----------------[/go]

It stated that this would be seki. But from what I can tell the white stones have two eyes and therefore not in seki. What am I missing here?

Is the one eye too larger? How does this work? Please help me understand.

speedchase · Post by **speedchase** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 4:44 pm

White can't capture black. Black can't capture white. Therefore it is seki.

tacttic · Post by **tacttic** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 4:48 pm

I just saw why.

I thought I was going insane.

And thanks for the quick reply.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$W $$ | . . . . . . . . $$ | . X . . . . . . $$ | . . X X X . . $$ | X X O O O X . . $$ | O O O 2 O X . . $$ | X 1 O O X . X . $$ | . X X O X . . . $$ ----------------[/go]

I didn't realize that this left the space open to capture the rest using white's eye.

EdLee · Post by **EdLee** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:14 am

tacttic wrote:...from what I can tell the white stones have two eyes...

Good. Now you know the W stones don't have 2 eyes; they only have 1.

Alguien · Post by **Alguien** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:40 am

For me the problem was that "two eyes" concept.

I've since learned to ignore the number of eyes and just read fillable/non-fillable liberties. Otherwise I'd never go past 8k in goproblems.

xed_over · Post by **xed_over** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 10:07 am

Alguien wrote:For me the problem was that "two eyes" concept.

care to elaborate on your initial confusion?

several teachers I know now teach beginners "two rooms" (when building a house [of territory]) instead of eyes. Do you think that might have made a difference in your understanding?

jts · Post by **jts** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 10:45 am

I think he's referring to false eyes, which "don't count" as eyes (or rooms, or scuba tanks, or whatever), except for when they do.

PeterPeter · Post by **PeterPeter** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 10:56 am

xed_over wrote:several teachers I know now teach beginners "two rooms" (when building a house [of territory]) instead of eyes. Do you think that might have made a difference in your understanding?

I think of them as 2 lungs, without which the group suffocates.

Codexus · Post by **Codexus** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:23 pm

Maybe the OP thought of the 5 spaces in the lower left area as an eye since white completely surrounds it. I can still remember making that mistake when I was just starting playing and losing a group I had thought was unconditionally alive.

A space larger than 1 intersection probably shouldn't be called an eye yet. We call them that anyway when there is no way to prevent such spaces from becoming a real eye (and no point in playing the moves to do so) but I can see how that can be confusing for beginners.

xed_over · Post by **xed_over** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:46 pm

Codexus wrote:Maybe the OP thought of the 5 spaces in the lower left area as an eye since white completely surrounds it.

yeah, that's why I no longer teach "surround to capture". instead, I teach you must suffocate your opponents stones to capture.
surround is too ambiguous in English

PeterPeter wrote:I think of them as 2 lungs, without which the group suffocates.

I teach that lines coming out from each stone are "breathing straws". when all are blocked the stone/group suffocates and dies.

from http://senseis.xmp.net/?Liberty

Liberty in Chinese is 气 ("Qi" in pinyin), which literally translates to "breath". The thought is that stones need breathing space and that once the last breathing space is removed, the stones die.

Bonobo · Post by **Bonobo** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 4:37 pm

xed_over wrote:[..]

I teach that lines coming out from each stone are "breathing straws". when all are blocked the stone/group suffocates and dies.

This is how my parents first taught me Go in 1964 or ’65

(I just wish I hadn’t had so many and so long pauses between then and now!)

Life In 19x19

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