From Japan to SL

The next Go tournament will start on March 11, with 18 players from all over the world, but only me from Japan ;; The other day in a practice game with Returnbook, black was me, a very strange shape was made. The white stones with red dots are all dead, but the rare situation is that there is no stone on the half of the board to this stage.




The reason of this rare result was my strange opening, which is called “Tiger”, a new pattern affected by AI. Returnbook kindly accepted it without hesitation. As show in the right picture, I made a mistake in the response and the top right corner ended up with a terrible shape, but I calmed down and made an approach move 1, but he soon made an invasion of 2.




I somehow managed to make containment, the black group was Seki. The left is when white made a peep A, to let black connect on B, but black did not follow and a new battle started. The right was on the way when black played C, intending to attack either red or blue group of white.




The left is the end stage of the battle attacking blue group above, white played on A to start Ko. Black can play on B to capture one stone, and white could return by C, but as the rule, it cannot be done immediately and both should play other places once. So, both will play Ko-threat that forces the opponent respond. The right is the end of Ko, where white played 1, threatening to capture black stones with yellow dots, but black did not respond and finished the Ko by 2, then white played on 3.



If the yellow dots in the above picture were captured, black will lose, so black tried hard to escape. The left is the stage where black escaped to the top area and attached A, intending three aims, to let the yellow dots stone escape, to make eyes on the left of A, and to narrow the white territory. In the right, white responded B, the surrounded area became false eyes and the all red-dots are dead. If white disregarded B and expanded the area by C or anything, both would be alive and white would lead a lot in the left half area. Thank you Returnbook for accepting and playing such a strange opening!



Affected by AI, now there are many new opening patterns, such as Black Hole, Southern Cross, Spider Web, or Great Wall. Different from Chess or Shogi where almost all openings were already studied, there will be more free possibility in Go, that is why I love it. Isn’t that great to be able to put stones on anyplace you want in such a wide board? There are always some free games in the tournament area, please visit!
Joseki Center: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Island%20Treasure/166/96/2598
Chess Site: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Pleione/120/99/4082
In the chess site, there are more games such as Chess, Backgammon, Poker, or Fencing.