 Dia. 1. Correct |
Dia. 1. The placement tesuji Black should first play 1, threatening to throw in a stone at 2. White is forced to connect at 2. Having taken care of this situation, Black can turn his attention to the top. White now plays the placement tesuji of 3. Connecting at 4 is White's only viable response. The moves from Black 5 to 7 can be expected. Next — |
 Dia. 2. |
Dia. 2. Falling back White must now fall back to 8, so Black can gain another point by exchanging 9 for White 10. Finally, Black connects at 11 and the game is over. The result: Black: 13 points. White: 12 points. Black wins by one point. |
 Dia. 3. |
Dia. 3. A ko Instead of 8 in Dia. 2, White might try to stop Black from gaining that extra point by blocking at 1. However, Black will make a placement at 2, and the only way White can now live is to start a ko with the throw-in tesuji of 3. But when Black captures with 4, he puts all the white stones at the top in atari. White has no comparable ko threat, so Black will capture White's stones with his next move. |
 Dia. 4 . |
Dia. 4. The belly attachment fails. Instead of the placement of White 3 in Dia. 1, the belly attachment of White 1 is a standard technique. But in this position it fails. White ataries with 2 and connects with 4. Finally, Black connects at 5, ending the game. The result: Black: 13 points. White: 16 points. White wins by three points. |
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The placement of Black 3 in Dia. 1 may seem to be quite far away from its allies on the right, but the fact that White's group has two cutting points and his stones are short of liberties are reasons for Black to play the most aggressive move and not play timidly as in Dia. 4. Recommended reading Get Strong at the Endgame is one of the most practical books ever written on the endgame. In it you will find the calculations for the value of endgame moves in over 100 common positions, as well as 120 endgame tesuji problems. Also included in its problems are 28 endgame positions on 11x11-size boards, where you can study the interplay between sente and gote. |