“secure a base” Not really, just grab some liberties.
The last is not that difficult to read because they are not so many ways to try to live, but the result is hard to understand when you just have it in the head, not on a board…
This is a puzzle from the Kanzufu collection which I submitted to OGS Puzzles some months ago.
If you are interested in more Kanzufu-puzzles, visit @vougalar’s Guan Zi Pu Collection Volume I: Play Go at online-go.com! | OGS
(Guan Zi Pu’s Japanese name is Kanzufu and in Korean it is called Gwan Ja Bo.)
In OGS’ Puzzle section it is unfortunately not possible to search on the tag of the author of a puzzle collection.
As an extra service to the visitors of this tsumego topic: today I added [Atorrante] to all of my puzzle collections. So if you search for Atorrante you will get all the puzzles collections I entered into OGS Puzzles on display.
This is cruel!
I spent about an hour trying to save black without looking at solutions!!!
I tried that even on the board!!!
I was super motivated to solve it by myself!!!
And failed.
Just because I was looking for the wrong outcome…
Out of curiosity: does Dutch go magazine rate these puzzles? Hard/medium/easy or something?
Now I read yesterday that someone wrote “I’m not talking about Utaro Hashimoto or some crazy stuff like that.” Amost flagged that post!
I think some more Hashimoto is good for you.
And not much crazy things in here.
Connection is the name of the game.
Would you please check the second puzzle?
I think I found a solution but it isn’t the expected one, which in turn appears incomplete to me: it ends with a white move and leaves a cut available if black doesn’t spend another move.
The problem I have with Utaro Hashimoto is that sometimes the puzzle is so puzzling that I look at the solution and still don’t understand what’s happening.
This one for example:
I watched at the solution and asked myself: “Now what? Is it a ko? Is it a snapback? How does the story end?”
Black can start a ko by playing A13, but after White B13 the four White stones can be captured (no ko threat). The three Black stones (around A16) subsequently are also dead (but could in theory be snap backed with White B15.
Black can keep alive what is left.
So it is a (useless) ko, (an unnecessary) snapback and Black lives but loses a lot of points.
Conclusion: good result for White.
I checked it. Both set up and solution are identical to what is in the book.
It is not impossible that there is another correct solution.
Always have the impression that Hashimoto goes for the most elegant solution (but don’t ask me to define elegant in this context)