Answer

Dia. 1. Correct

Dia. 1. The wedge-in tesuji If you know your tesujis, the wedge-in (warikomi) of Black 1 is the first move that will grab your attention. It is in fact the correct move. Black has two ways to answer, at 'a' or at 'b'. Black 'a' offers the strongest resistance. If Black plays 'b', his stones will quickly be captured. So let's first look at the variations generated by Black 'a'.

Dia. 2

Dia. 2. Another wedge-in tesuji After Black 2, White blocks with 3 and Black captures a stone with 4. At this point, White must be careful. Cutting at 'a' would be a mistake. Instead, White must play another wedge-in (hanekomi) move from above with 5. This move prevents Black from getting out into the center. Black has two options: to atari at 'b' or to atari at 'c'. Instead of 5 —

Dia. 3

Dia. 3. Black escapes. This position is similar to the 'cranes nest', which was explained in Dia. 3 of Instalment #2. The usual continuation for White would be to squeeze Black with 1 and 3. After White connects with 4, White 5 is the only move that keeps up the pressure. Black ataries from above with 6 and White squeezes with 7 and 9. But, after connecting with 10, Black has escaped into the open. Therefore, Black cannot play this way. He has to play 5 in Dia 2.

Dia. 4

Dia. 4. Atekomi: a hard move to see After Black 5 in Dia. 2, suppose Black ataries on top with 6. The atekomi tesuji of White 7 is the only move. Starting from Dia. 1, it is a hard move to see seven moves deep into the solution. Next —

Dia. 5

Dia. 5. Black's stones are captured. If Black connects at 8, White connects at 9 and the black stones are captured.

Dia. 6

Dia. 6. Connect and die If Black answers White 7 in Dia. 4 with the atari of 8, White cuts with 9 and ataries with 11. Black can't connect at 'a' because White will capture at the marked stone. If Black connects at the marked stone, White will capture at 'a'. Therefore, Dias. 5 and 6 show that Black 6 in Dia. 4 fails. Let's go back to 'c' in Dia. 2.

Dia. 7 Dia. 7. The final tesuji Suppose Black ataries at 6 ('c' in Dia. 2). White then pushes in with 7 and ataries with 9. After Black connects at 10, White connects at 11, so Black has to connect at 12. The stage is now set for White's final tesuji. Dia. 8 Dia. 8. A capturing race White traps Black's clump of stones by jumping ahead of them with 13 (geta). Black is now caught up in a capturing race with the five white stones at the bottom, but he has only three liberties to White's four. His only chance is to try to capture some white stones on the left side. For example — Dia. 9 Dia. 9. Black captures a stone, but — Black pushes in with 1 and captures a stone with 5. White now ataries with 6. Next — Dia. 10 Dia. 10. Black is captured. After Black connects with 7, White finishes him off with 8 and 10. Let's go back to Dia. 1. Dia. 11 Dia. 11. The order of moves The order in which White plays the first two tesujis is important. If White first wedges in at the top with 1 (hanekomi), Black will connect at 2. This is the stick connection (bo-tsugi) tesuji that we saw in Instalment #3. No matter how White continues, he will lose the capturing race by one move. Please confirm this for yourself. Let's go back to Dia. 2. Dia. 12 Dia. 12. Less complicated Instead of 2 in Dia. 2, if Black plays 2 on the right, capturing the key black stones becomes less complicated. After Black captures with 4, White cuts with 5. After White ataries with 7 — Dia. 13 Dia. 13. Connect and die Black captures with 8. Now White ataries from below with 9 and Black can't save his key stones. That is, if Black connects at 'a', White captures seven stones at the marked stone; if Black connects at the marked stone, White captures the five key stones with 'a' ('connect and die' ). Recommended reading Being able to solve problems such as the one above or to find those winning moves in difficult positions that arise in your own games requires a familiarity with all the standard tesuji. You can acquire this familiarity by working through the problems in A Survey of the Basic Tesujis , and then follow it up with Five Hundred and One Tesuji Problems. The latter book starts off with a complete list of the 45 standard tesujis. Multiple problems for each are randomly presented throughout the book, just as they would randomly arise in a game. Kyu players who seriously studied these books would gain a lot of facility and flexibility in their fighting skills and would surely improve by two or three handicap stones. Of course it cannot be overemphasized the importance of solving life-and-death problems for improving your reading skills, but I will discuss this topic in the next instalment.