Who has the guts to cut into this White position at ‘1’ ?
I certainly saw the cut while I was playing this game, but my ‘A’ group was weak and I figured that Black would simply chase my cutting stone towards ‘A’ and then kill about ‘A’ and my cutting stone.
How in the world does one develop the ability to calmly jump into a sea of black like that???
Twenty moves later, I’m still not ready to cut….
But I woke with some ideas
You are removing liberties on two groups and you are NOT running away – you are seizing the opportunity of attacking TWO groups who BOTH have less liberties than when you started. And since the central theme of Baduk is to make life for groups or threaten life of groups, you need to look at your cut that way.
Idea Number 1 – read both ataris
The most severe thing that Black can do to the cutting stone is atari it, putting it in jeopardy of dying and hence removing the threat of being cut apart.