Sunday Problem #90
This is a variant of Sunday Problem #89.
Black to play and be a cockroach.
Solution
The attachment of black 1 is correct. The sequence here shows what happens if White waits until the last to fight the kō in the middle; in reality, White will fight it from the start, using the other moves as threats.
Black will have a hard time living, but the group still cannot be called unconditionally dead.
February Review Lecture
Streamed on Twitch on February 19, 2022.
Games reviewed:
Sunday Problem #89
I arranged this problem from one of my teaching games.
Black to play.
Solution
Black doesn’t quite have enough space to live with a normal move such as black 1 here. White simply reduces Black’s eye space with 2 and 4, and there is no way for Black to form her second eye.
The cockroachy moves of black 1 and 3 are the necessary tesuji to form life in this problem. After black 3, White has no choice but to fight a kō in order to kill Black.
Sunday Problem Backlog (Dec 5 – Feb 6)
After my holiday in December I was slow in picking up posting Sunday problems. Here are now the problems from December 5 to February 6 in one batch. Enjoy!
Black to play in all problems, as usual. You can click on each image to move to that problem’s post, which may hold additional hints.
Sunday Problem #88
This is a classic tesuji problem.
Black to play.
Solution
Black’s correct sequence is to block White’s escape with 1, and, after White cuts black with 2, to jump down to 3.
After 3, Black simultaneously aims to link up to the right with the monkey jump of ‘a’ and to capture White’s cutting stone of 2 with ‘b–f’. Because of this double threat, White has no way to avoid capture.
Sunday Problem #87
This is a rather amusing problem from the Celestial Dragon Diagrams.
Black to play.
Solution
The gist of this problem is about the atari at ‘a’ which White intends to play at the most annoying timing. Black’s only way to work around it is to start with the atari of 1, followed by the ‘reverse monkey jump’ of 3.
Sunday Problem #86
This problem is less about the moves and more about figuring out what exactly is going on. When should the players switch elsewhere?
Black to play.
Solution
Black 1 is the correct starting move, and White’s strongest resistance is 2. (If instead of 2 White plays at 3, Black 2 starts a direct kō fight.)
After black 3, the …
Online League Restarts on February 1
Happy New Year, folks!
As many of you will be happy to hear – we have had a good number of inquiries – the ngd Online League will restart on February 1 with a number of changes. Initially our plan was to restart already on January, so we’re sorry for the wait! (You can register here!)
First off, here …
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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