Here’s a video I made about a very cool tesuji, the double ladder breaker.
(hopefully it’s more interesting/productive than some other recent threads)
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Do the double ladder beakers have to be that close? I don’t see a reason why they couldn’t be shifted diagonally (played closer to the opposite corners), but I’m not sure I can trust my reading.
I believe that they have to be as close as possible, otherwise there is a double ladder enabler move for the opponent.
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Oh, I see. So if they are far away, they would have to be really forcing, so the opponent can’t play a closer one.
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Yes, the double ladder breaker could be further away on the diagonal and still work to break both ladders, but being closer is better in general because it’s a more local fix so you don’t need to worry about some other move in the path appearing later in the game making you need an extra move to fix (though the local area is so hot probably white wouldn’t just tenuki after the double breaker anyway). Also in the joseki example in the video, even after the breaker there are still some complicated local fighting things white can try, and in those cases having the double breaker closer will help in those variations.
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