Guess the black stones

[claire_yang]

Oh!, I skipped a whole round And it was an interesting one with an unusual opening.

So I’ll provide another one also unusual but in the opposite way.

I’ll give some hints, this game has very uncommon fuseki. It is a pro game, between two high dan Japanese pros, and a pre-alphaGo game but within the decade.

Total 20 black stones missing, and since it is pretty difficult, I’ll just give each correct placing stone 1 point, but no penalty for the wrong ones (although only 20 black stones are allowed to be placed). And a long time of 3 days.

[mark5000]

Hell if I know the order these were played. But I think I got the first four.

My guess

[gennan]

My guess

This looks like a very unusual opening and I have no idea how this came to be. I tried to make some sensible black shapes between white’s stones, but I expect a low score.

[mark5000]

Bump for @shinuito @Gia @Maharani @Harleqin @bugcat @martin3141 and anyone else who wants to try placing the black stones in this intriguing position.

[Gia]

Wait for meeeee (it’s been 3 days already?)

[claire_yang]

I can wait for all of you.

I will be more or less busy watching Nongshin cup this week, as well as keep digging through old 1880s game records (there are like 700~800 games in the Hoensha newspaper records) and documents. It would certainly make me busy…

[bugcat]

Do you know whether there’s more Nongshim tonight?

[claire_yang]

Yes. And it will be Shin Jinseo vs Ke Jie

[Harleqin]

I’ll pass this round.

[Gia]

my guess

I don’t really like my lower left corner, but

[claire_yang]

@bugcat @Maharani @martin3141 @shinuito you guys want to make guesses for this round?

[Maharani]

No thanks. In fact Ive never guessed in this game before, I just like to supply AI positions for y’all to puzzle your brains over.

[mark5000]

Just know you’re totally welcome to give it a go when you’re ready to try. I have a feeling that others besides just myself would be very interested in seeing what you’d come up with and how your mind operates. There’s nothing at stake here. It’s all for fun.

[claire_yang]

I am also curious how everyone perceived the board balance would be like. It definitely does look very influence-heavy with most white stones above the fourth line.

[gennan]

Don’t look if you intend to still make an attempt for @claire_yang’s puzzle.

Spoiler alert

It looks like the position is move 40 of this game: So Yokoku (8p) vs. Cho Sonjin (9p) | Waltheri's go pattern search
Indeed a Black Hole opening, as @mark5000 guessed correctly.
I know that opening, but it didn’t even cross my mind that this puzzle was a black hole opening!

[bugcat]

I’m waiting for an easier round to come up~

[shinuito]

I haven’t had time to try it, but it also looks very tough

[claire_yang]

@Shinuito do I have to wait for you?

This round really is too hard isn’t it? Looks like we need to hold a polling like last time, to see if they are too hard or too easy…

[shinuito]

I can go downstairs and make a guess now. I’ll try do it on a board

[shinuito]

I still find it very hard to visualise what was happening on the board, but I made a guess not to hold you any longer