This series of forcing moves seems interesting to me
But I’m not sure if White has better responses than what I guessed…
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I dunno. The last black move is quite gote, white being connected already with the outside. And F15 is just a false eye so black just got some clumsy stones not yet starting some life. (Didn’t check if forcing worked, just looking the end result)
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I don’t think that works. White’s E14 and H15 would wreck Black, wouldn’t it?
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Before exchanging C18 D18 I’d rather see how white responds to F12. If white gives up on E12 black’s group isn’t in much danger.
On the other hand black might be able to get a ko with the D7 stones and playing more forcing moves might be a waste of ko threats. But I haven’t really seen the ko yet, I wouldn’t be too surprised if there actually wasn’t one.
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Yeah, you’re all right - I didn’t think ahead very well : /
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It’s ok, here to discuss anyway and i share your enthusiasm.
Back on analysis, i think doubtful we get c18 and a life inside the white moyo, as before we had a kill of the invading stones even with a forcing move from the opposite direction as C18
The F12 cut loses a liberty and a ko threat. So maybe not clearly beneficial to do now, unless there is some tactic working immediately (which I don’t think is the case).
I see G13 more as a probe. As our curiosity about white’s answer was satisfied, I feel it is time to return to something that makes use of the extra ko material white gave with their G12 response.
So I’d like to play another probe asking white what they want on the left side: I’m still curious how white will respond to the clamp at B8.
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Well that’s higher thinking as my first reaction but
I was counting a bit on that after these two black moves in white huge area. I feel then a bit disappointed.
Did we just generate some more ko threats?
I don’t know. I wasn’t all that interested in trying to raise the stakes around H12 for either color at this moment, or committing to something on the upper side. The reason is that I’m not really seeing black succeeding here at the moment and I don’t want to flail around a bit and lose precious aji.
This doesn’t look good to me for black:
In my view, black would be giving up points and aji, hoping to live. But my fear is that black is still dead on the upper side. I think that @tonybe’s diagram is a bit wishful thinking. I don’t expect white to cooperate with moves like 4 and 10 (and still I’m not sure if black lives even if white does).
So what are we trying to achieve here? Are we going to try living on the upper side, or are we going to build some strength on the outside, similar to what @claire_yang suggested earlier?
Or are we going to try for a ko fight in the lower left?
I feel that very soon (or even now) a choice needs to be made between options that are more or less mutually exclusive.
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Yeah me too i don’t see anything better as what @claire_yang (J 12 wedge) suggested. Even using all the peeps available the killing sequence by @artem92 seems to still be working. so c18 or your B8 suggestion are more attractive to me.
Just worrying that B8 could end gote or in some kind of overplay considering the life death of the UL group, in that case starting with a forcing move at C18 being safer ?
Btw in the sequence by claire where white gets a ko on black connection of the UL group with outside (second dia.)I didn’t really understand why black will do that 5-6 exchange and not instead just keep his stones fully connected without any ko?
I agree that we can hold off playing F12, although we’ll probably play it soon.
The B8 clamp looks like ko. And it’s a risky ko:
I propose B7 here instead of clamping. It can resolve very simply in sente like this:
A liberty problem prevents Black from resisting harder:
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Short answer, because connecting ko is wasting sente. Long answer, because by creating a ko, the original miai sente move white can pull off (between A18 and B10 to force black to answer, hence a sente move for white), now is gote for white(3-ways), and if white want to start the ko, black can answer locally, and it is completely safe (a picnic ko, white would just help UL black to live), and white has to go back to answer whatever black played before starting the ko (that means the move black played now more or less has to be sente, or big enough).
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I am torn between B7 and B8.
B7 is a good reduction of the left side white group and keep black sente, and settles the left side more or less (white still somewhat has forcing moves to the UL black group as sente yose). It’s delaying black’s choices to the future (what’s the next move for black after this?)
B8 is a super big and risky ko, if black wins it would be not just settle the left side and UL, and possibility killing LL white stones. It would be basically game over. The trouble is, I would personally like a risky and big pay day ko, since I am pretty sure black has so many ko threat from the upper side, and white mostly only has local threats, but not so sure as a community game, a ko fight would look like. We stronger players here would probably have to carry the weight in calculating these ko threats, and would be fun but also exhausting?
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But after this B7 sequence, isn’t A11 a problem for black UL group now that white left is more solid?
(I put a few var in the game demo )
That’s why it’s risky, winning it would be big, losing black’s UL is in danger, so some of black’s ko threats would have to involve some forcing move like F12, D15, C17, D18, etc. and then around L16.
And after some basic calculation and assessment, I got a feeling that white might refuse to play ko, and just opt to keep the left side. I think It is a dominating ko for white, since when white loses, it’s basically game over. So whenever black played ko threats around UL, white would probably just let black live, and resolve the ko, and we are back to more or less the same, but a settled left side and UL. What I haven’t worked out is how much damage black can inflict playing two moves around L16, most likely live and break the upper side. Can black in the future cut off the entire UR white group, and white would be left with only territory on the left side (not to mention the LR white is still not alive).
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That left side is so a mess…
I went down a deep rabbit hole.
I was trying to work out the ko from @mark5000 variation, and found one of the white local ko threat A5 extend white liberties to the lower right and can prolong the ko fights for white. And it got me thinking, what if black played A6 first before starting it.
After an hour, I realized it is a deep rabbit hole… (yes, I wend down from option A all to G, and haven’t even finish half of them, and already involved lots of ko variations, semeai, territory swap, etc.)
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Reasonable players would maybe just exchange UL black group for LR white one… that LR could have still enough aji to keep the game fair with a sweet reduction of black moyo? Ok just dreaming, generating deep rabbit hole(s) is fun too.
In Chinese rule, it’s pretty simple, split the board in 4 parts and estimate the intersections belongings. Let’s say the UL and LR is exchange, it means the whole LR is black, the UL is like almost all white. And let’s assume the empty space between 6th line and 12th line is even split (above 10 white, below black), that means UR will be mostly white, where black been pushed down to mostly 2nd line, and LL is about even (if black cannot use the aji to reduce LL to offset the favorable situation on UR). So out of the 4, white is more favorable, and black has to give komi.
In short, exchange UL with LR is not a good idea for black, but good for white. Black’s sente is very crucial right now, and cannot lose it, and has to accomplish a lot to make this game with komi even.
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