Friday 19 July 2013

Interesting End Game Problem



This is a game between Seo Bongsoo 9p (white) and Kobayashi Koichi 9p (black) in 1993's Fujisu Cup. Seo seemed determined to challenge Kobayashi's yose skill, so we end up seeing a peaceful game atypical of Seo's "wild grass" fighting style. For those who are familiar with the history of the professional Go history, Kobayashi's yose and positional judgement skills were top among pro players at that time.

Seo did fairly well and as the game approached end game, it remained very close. In fact, he only lost by 1.5 with 5.5 points komi. As shown above, white answered black's A squeeze with B. Did he have to?!


If w ignores, black 1,3 are to be expected. After white 4, black seems to be short in liberty ... but black 9 is the killing move! Locally it's a very unfavourable ko for white. If white 4 jumps at 6 (2-2) instead, it will also be a ko that's heavy for white and free for black.

Both players must have seen black 9, and it must be with regret when white answered at B in the previous diagram, knowing he would lose by a very small margin.

Complete game record and discussions around the point of interest:




Wednesday 8 May 2013

Game of "copy cats"

This was an interesting game played with James Sedgwick in 2012 Winter Cup. Let's call it the game of copy-cats due to some copy-cat moves played by both with a good sense of humour.

Main point of discussion: black move 25.

I must say it's a very interesting and complex whole board problem even though it's early in the game. I've put enough thoughts based on my limited strength.


Saturday 13 April 2013

Interesting Moyo Game


I visited the local Outago Club the other day and played a game with Pierre-Olivier, a dedicated local player. The opening was quite interesting -- relaxed and daring. Other than the 3 tournament games in Montreal, this is my first game played face to face in 2013.

Saturday 16 March 2013

2013 Montreal Winter Cup

This annual tournament is my favourite time of every February. A gathering of strong players in the region, good friendships, beautiful tournament venue -- what more can a Go player ask for?

Full tournament photo album can be found here:








In round 2, I was paired with Remi. I lost the game but was glad that it did not appear Remi can give me 2 stones after his training in BIBA Korea, :) On the technical side, I played the game with good fighting spirit. I don't like certain moves/choices I made, and at my level it is also hard to do better. For those interested, I have marked up the game with lots of variation and commentaries.

I have participated in the tournament 4 years in a row since 2010. Every time I got paired with James Sedgwick 6d. Now it is clear mid-aged players like James and myself will face tough head-wind battle against strong young players in the region: Daniel, Remi, Manuel, and so on.

Hanxi vs Remi game with commentaries

Saturday 16 February 2013

Jowa's powerful games -- 3 of 3

This game was an under-advertised great fighting game, played between Jowa and his rival, Inoue Genan Inseki(井上因碩幻庵). The scale, intensity of fights and amount of readings involved are overwhelming.
This game was played in 1814, and was one of the many unofficial matches between the pair of rivals early in their careers. Throughout the game you can clearly see bad bloods were accumulating between the pair, as they both tried to destroy each other.
Black 113 and 115 are brilliant moves. However a couple mistakes later in the large-scale semeai costed black the game.

Saturday 2 February 2013

Jowa's powerful games -- 1 and 2 of 3

Honinbo Jowa had a reputation of being the most ruthless fighter.

Besides the famous "blood-vomiting" game, I have 3 favourite games played by him. Simply put, his play was just too powerful. At my level it is not feasible to truly understand or comment on these complex games. Nonetheless, it makes good studying materials.

The first two of these 3 games were h-2 games against amateur player Shinomiya Yonezo.



Saturday 12 January 2013

Nostalgia: IGS game with soft


I stumbled upon this old game of mine played in year 2000 on IGS.
The opponent I played was no doubt a pro, rumoured to be Kobayashi Koichi 9p.
My heartbeat speeded up when he accepted the game -- such an honour! :)

It was a fast game (25 moves per 5 min?). When reviewing now, I don't understand
why I missed B-16 atari. Although black didn't get any big group killed, you can
see how a pro bullies an amateur player and deprives him of points on board.