Sunday Problem #27
Finland is celebrating its 103rd Independence Day today, and so, for this week’s problem, I ended up composing a tsumego in Finland’s shape.
There’s a lot of open space, which complicates reading, but as far as I could see there is only one solution.
Black to play.
Solution
A straightforward defence such as black 1, planning to sacrifice just …
Online League Format Changes on January 1
Starting from 1 January 2021, we will make two changes to our online league format, one a large one and the other a smaller one.
Tl;dr version
- Pairings will be rolled out monthly instead of bimonthly, are determined directly by league standings, and your results will affect your league standing.
- Games that end because of mistakes and oversights will start …
The Game Is Not over Yet – Go in the Post-AlphaGo Era
Recently, my and Associate Professor Egri-Nagy’s second go paper, The Game Is Not over Yet – Go in the Post-AlphaGo Era passed its peer review and got published in the Philosophies open access journal. You can read the article here.
Most of the main content in the article is by Mr Egri-Nagy, but I am responsible for the parts that relate to stronger go players’ point of view. There are also a few tangents to my Bachelor’s thesis, which I was happy to build on.
Sunday Problem #26
With this post, we have reached half a year’s worth of Sunday problems! In case you haven’t noticed, this page (the link is under the ‘material’ tab and also on the right-side bar) lists all the Sunday problems in easily accessible form.
This problem is from the Japanese book 達人の詰碁 (Tatsujin no tsumego), or Expert’s Tsumego. According to …
Sunday Problem #25
To complete the set, this sample problem is from the advanced section of Maeda’s Tsumego Collection.
Black to play.
Solution
The eye-stealing placement of 1 looks like the natural starting point, but after White connects with 2, the next move is key. Only Black’s non-obvious sacrificing move of 3 will then manage to capture. After White resists with 4, black 5 connects under and the white group only has one eye.
If White instead responds to black 1 with 4, then black 3 again kills.
Sunday Problem #24
While last week’s Sunday problem was from the elementary section of Maeda’s Tsumego Collection, this week’s problem is from the intermediate section.
Black to play.
Solution
The key to this problem is the non-obvious black 5. If Black captured the two stones instead, white 5 would capture the black group whole; therefore, sacrificing the three stones to the right is the best Black can do. After black 7, Black lives with a minimal shape.
Sunday Problem #23
This week’s problem is from Maeda Nobuaki 9p’s three-part tsumego collection, titled simply 前田詰碁集 (Maeda Tsumego-Shū), or Maeda’s Tsumego Collection. The three volumes together contain 585 relatively basic life-and-death problems that make for good reading practice for players of all levels.
A shortened version of the second volume can be bought on SmartGo Books under the title ‘Life …
Events
All times are in Helsinki time (eet with summer time).
League standings and pairings updated at the start of each month.
Public lectures on Twitch every 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month at 1 pm.
Jeff and Mikko stream on Twitch on Fridays at 6 pm.
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