Life In 19x19

Posted: **Tue Feb 12, 2013 1:41 am**

Another Go Seigen game for you today. When I was recording his games there were always some moves that were astonishing, to me as an amateur. Look at move 11 in this game before you go any further and ask yourself, what does this move mean to the bottom left corner? Yes, the bottom left corner.

The thing is in pro games that there are always moves like that, which probe the opponent’s intentions but also protect against future threats. It is just in this game Miyashita played the variation which could have led to the ladder and we can see how far Go had read to prepare for it.

Best wishes.

Posted: **Tue Feb 12, 2013 9:17 am**

It seems I see the 3-5 in conjunction with the shimari fuseki by black fairly often. Was the 3-5 a way to overcome the absence of komi by instigating intricate fights?

Posted: **Tue Feb 12, 2013 9:42 am**

It fascinates me, how to assess if this ( :b11:

) forcing move has the same or maybe even a bigger value than the corner, giving White will play another move there.

Posted: **Tue Feb 12, 2013 10:23 am**

Here's another game with a similar ladder breaking move. The Go Seigen game reminded me of this. If you can please turn your eyes to move 41.

SmoothOper wrote:It seems I see the 3-5 in conjunction with the shimari fuseki by black fairly often. Was the 3-5 a way to overcome the absence of komi by instigating intricate fights?

In the taisha joseki, whoever had the diagonal corner would have some advantages in the ladder variations (which were many). It was a tactic used by White in classical no-komi go. As komi came into fruition Black naturally adopted some of the strategies that White had been using for the last hundred years. There were also many other tactics and innovations in the days of White no-komi, which you can find more information about in "Old Fuseki vs. New Fuseki."