I thought it might be fun to share some sekis people find occurring in their games, or as happens to be the case sometimes, sekis that could’ve happened in the game but didn’t. There’s this old thread about biggest/impressive seki but I don’t want that restriction! Ones in the corner of the board I do find interesting though
For example here’s two, one from a good while ago on OGS
Black resigned this game, losing by roughly ~37ish points at the time, but there is what looks like a seki in this corner if Black plays first. One way for white to answer suggested by Katago (first image), and I’m adding a couple of extra unnecessary stones to make it clearer (second image)
There’s lot of examples that come up regularly from 3-3 invasion joseki usually involving endgame, if anyone has those examples, or any others they find interesting
I actually have a couple of more I could post. One I thought looked cool from a recent Grand Prix game from Artem vs Stanislaw. It was an interesting seki sequence in the middle of the board
There was a seki in a game I posted in the meme thread
There’s a seki sequence in the bottom left starting with the blue move. Of course there is massive aji starting with k14, but White doesn’t need it to win, and it was a 7 stone handicap game.
This happened on a real board after very messy ko fights about a year ago. I’ve shared this on ‘go memes’ thread, but i guess its worth posting here too. I’m sitll proud of it, largest seki i’ve ever had ^^
Oh also had this accidental seki couple of weeks ago, i thought i killed the large white group but he managed to turn it into seki. Happy little accidents ^^
Check out this early-game potential seki set up in a high-playout KataGo (7 komi, NZ rules) self-play game that isn’t resolved (as a seki) until over 100 moves later (video review by Anton Christenson, EGF 3d):
(I was black and ignored my opponent playing inside until I realized and played A1 trying to make a seki, in my defense, there was another urgent situation on the board and my opponent gave up points there in return. a lopsided game… I’m not used to the new ranks, 2-3 stones seems to be a big gap now)
This one I was pretty sure about, but we went to scoring and my opponent (black) said they thought they could kill. So we resumed, and they played, then agreed with me. But now I’m uncertain. Is that the correct resolution in case of this disagreement? Normally a player is not compelled to play, thus seki arises. But in disagreements at scoring are they compelled to play and “prove it”? In this case, the result rested on our agreement or resolution (if seki, white would win). But I can imagine a situation where the result will flip if one player disagrees,is forced to play, but was wrong, and in the process gives points to their opponent.
I know there is weirdness with official Japanese rules, but I am also interested in general for OGS policy if this was handled correctly, as it’s the first time I ran into it.
my opponent (black) said they thought they could kill. So we resumed, and they played, then agreed with me. But now I’m uncertain. Is that the correct resolution in case of this disagreement? Normally a player is not compelled to play
You’re right that you’re not compelled to “prove capture”. You have the right to refuse continuation and call a moderator to make a verdict.
That said, this is only relevant if Black insists that you put more stones into your area than he does, since that’d make you lose points. In this case, Black has no means of doing that, so you have the option (not obligation) to continue play.
Just as you have the right not to start play inside your territory, so Black has the right to do so himself. If there is no successful aji exploitation available then he simply loses a point, and that is fine for you.
I think the Japanese rules were supposed to have some special life and death phase where you can’t play ko threats and played stones don’t actually count as points lost, just to determine status (something like that?).
Anyway another thing one could do, assuming analysis was on I guess, is share a variation why it’s a seki. If black plays either move to try kill white gets a big enough eyeshape to make two eyes. White doesn’t need to play either to capture a dead sharp.
But probably just contact a moderator like bugcat said makes sense.
In this case Black lost twelve points by attempting to kill, right? If that had changed the outcome, he might feel that the result was unfair. So I would avoid saying “you have to play” (since he doesn’t) and instead just suggest that he is welcome to try that if he wants.
Also, this is a reason to stick with Chinese-style rules in games with random people or players of different strengths where there might be disagreement at the end!
I’m not familiar with the details of Japanese rules, but one part of them is that status is determined by “hypothetical play”. So in this case, after your opponent agrees that they can’t kill, you would return to the original position and score it as seki. This is not really implemented online though, so calling a moderator is necessary to settle disagreements like these… which gets extra fun in more complicated cases because most likely the moderator also isn’t familiar with the exact details of the Japanese rules
So indeed, avoiding Japanese rules is the real solution here
Either seki are more common than I expected, or I cursed myself by making this meme Go Memes! 🧐 - #2382 by michiakig, or more likely I need to work on life and death This one is still hard for me to follow the “correct” response even with AI help.
