I was reviewing a game that I lost as part of a huge losing streak I happen to be on at the moment: I have plummeted from 7k to 9k.
In the game, I was playing Black and I came to the following position which shows a hane that looked very dubious to me:
Several moves prior, I noticed that a cut at 1 in sente would allow me to follow up with a cut at 2 and then I can capture group A or B.
But I was not able to make the connection between my observation and playing H12. I’ve played through many variations and most of naive responses to H12 have led to the groups A, B and C being trapped against Black’s wall with one eye and dying. E.g, the last thing you want to do is play H11 and attempt to cut off the Black stone that just hane’d.
After about 1-2 hours of playing through this I finally found a response by White that leads to him only losing group B and having group E one hane away from being captured
White extends to H13
This looks like game over for Black. Shouldnt he connect back to H11 or get trapped in the White moyo???
Katago calmly plays a double hane!
Even though I thought G12 or H11 would defuse the double hane, it actually helps Black grow in strength greatly. I made several mistakes trying to atari the stones that made the double hane and the mistakes led to a very compromised position for White.
It appears best for white to strengthen his groups instead of trying to capture the attacking stones.
Solid play led to this position where White loses a 2-stone group and might lose the G11 stone…. but it loses far less material than White initially was losing due to my naive thrashing about.
Is this example commonplace play for dan-level players?
Reading strength can only be gained with training. And apparently it is a necessary factor to be strong at Go.
I’m very curious to know if the reading involved in this is possible for a dan-level human or only for superhuman AI.
Feedback from forum
The reddit baduk crowd had this to say about this position.