Spirit Animal (9k) vs me (7k)

Interesting game versus another redditor-youtuber. Move 31 – the fearsome power of influence We reach our first crucial position. White has 44 points of “cash” and Black has maybe half that in cash. But Black’s influence is fearsome. If he puts down a stone at 9, he locks up 20 more points.. sort of… I can hop in at 10. […]

Massive kills: Notes from the Homicide Files

Remove base, reduce eyespace (to a Bulky 5), play the vital point It was a back-and-forth affair with eric128 until I set my sights on the group in the lower left: It looks like a fairly large group. Didnt look possible to kill. But the clossi approach has a clear set of steps to deal with a weak group – […]

Life and Death Galore in this 8k bloodfest

I just lost a game I was winning the whole time. But even so there were many opportunities to play even stronger. Position 1 – You need 3 corners to make that eye… I hate how obvious these L&D problems are after the game. But suffice to say that Black must have both points 1 and 2 to make an […]

The Edge Crush in Baduk

In his “Go Dojo” software Bruce Wilcox refers to this shape as an edge-crush: a third-line stone surrounded with the shape White has here is a sure kill however… the crushing stones must have enough liberties during the ensuing fight If the White stones cannot handle Black’s efforts to fight back then the edge-crush does not work. We will discuss […]

The Baduk Homicide Files

The “bye-bye 2 eyes” murder Approximate time of homicide – February 11, 2023 4:35 PMĀ – March 10, 2023 3:24 PM Named in honor of one of my favorite Columbo episodes, this kill spanned a vertical column that was sky high. The murder sequence began on move 151. It only took me 100 moves to leverage the cut that AI saw […]