Go Puzzle

From the awesome book: Graded Go Problems for Beginners (volume 2).

There is a solution which the book marks as wrong. But even with the wrong solution it is still possible for black to capture all the white stones at the bottom (with a better result) or am I missing something?

The question was: Black to play. How can black capture 4 stones?

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If the goal is just to capture the four stones, then the correct solution is cleaner.

With the ko, it gives the opponent the chance to make a trade. If you Atari the stone at 2, and maybe they play 2 in the correct answer diagram for arguments sake.

Then capturing the 2 stone starts a ko. White plays a move elsewhere on the board, and now to capture the four stones you have to give your opponent two moves in a row somewhere else on the board. If you answer their move which was somewhere else they capture back the number 1 stone in the wrong diagram with 2 fighting the ko.

Also losing the ko, would mean losing the surrounded black stones, so that could be bad :slight_smile:

Does that kind of make sense?

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I don’t understand what you mean. I would say after white captures the black stone (1), I can play directly on the left of white (2). White can barely make eyes, so I can continue capturing his stones from thereon.

But by winning the ko white can connect the 4 stones out and it is so the black stones that will not have eyes…

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Can you see how I played it out?

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I can yes. In the first variation, this is precisely why White wouldn’t play F1.

In the second variation H1 doesn’t need to be played by White. If the four White stones are going to get captured anyway, then saving that one stone can’t be important unless it’s right at the end of the game with nowhere else to play. So instead of H1, White plays elsewhere, and if Black captures the four White stones, White gets two moves in a row elsewhere. If Black captures the H1 stone next, White gets three moves in a row elsewhere :slight_smile:

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Thanks! It is clear to me now :slight_smile: I don’t agree this is a beginners puzzle :sweat_smile:

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There is so much to learn about go that ‘beginner’ is a somewhat broad term. Anyone not a dan may be called such? :slight_smile:

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