Challenger in 2001, titleholder in 2003 ...

By Rob Van Zeijst

Challenger in 2001, titleholder in 2003, successful defender last year, and loser this year--that sums up Cho U's Honinbo career. Earning over 100 million yen from playing go last year, Cho still holds the Meijin, NEC, Oza and NHK titles. This hectic activity over the past four or five years seems to have finally taken its toll.

However, this does not detract from challenger Shinji Takao's achievement of taking the Honinbo title 4-1. In the best-of-seven series, Takao took a 3-0 lead, meaning that he needed only one more win. Cho managed to win the fourth game to stay alive. The opening of the fifth game was bizarre, but despite his bad start, Takao took home the title and 32 million yen. Let's have a look at the opening of this decisive game. Cho is black.

Diagram 1: Up to 9, everything is normal. White 10 is the first difficult decision. Instead of this move, he could have cut at 12 immediately. After 14, black 15 is a good move as it is an extension from his corner enclosure (shimari) at top right, preventing a white extension there. White 16 performs the same function. Black 17 is an attempt to sow panic. However, White responds calmly with 18. Black has little choice but to play at 19. The next move, white 20, seems strange and unprofessional. The pros following the games had expected White to block at A. The reason is that to a pro's eye, Black now has a terrific tesuji. We will continue this game next week.

Diagram 2: This is the second installment on how to keep or even widen your lead when you have a 9-stone handicap. In the last column, we argued that Black should play at A in response to 1. If he fails to do this, White's stone at 1 does not need immediate attention. This means the stone has various ways of avoiding an attack through various follow-up moves, such as attaching at C, playing at D or invading at E. Since there is no immediate concern for this stone, White may play at 3, and if Black answers at 4, cap at 5. The average black player would be worried about his marked stone. However, White's reason for capping is to make sabaki, i.e., to give his stones at 1 and 3 an escape route, space to live, or an avenue of attack, if things go well.

Diagram 3: The shoulder hit of 6 is the strongest move. The moves through 15 are natural. However, when Black blocks at 16, a complicated fight ensues that ends in a favorable ko for Black. Note that the marked stones are all in a good position for the battle. But I do not recommend this line of play as it is too complicated.

Solution to June 23 problems

Solution 1A: In this six-stone handicap game, the question was what to do after white 7. Black 8 is a good move as it takes control of the center. The next problem comes after 9. Black should ignore this and play at 10 to dominate the upper side.

Solution 1B: Isn't the lower left corner vulnerable? Even when White invades at 1, Black can live with the sequence through 8. Later on, he may be able to counterattack at A.

Solution 1C: As an alternative, after white 3, Black can play at 4. This move traps the white stone at 1. For example, white A is followed by black B.

Solution 2: The question was how should Black use his marked cutting stone. Black 1 is a good way. White can block with 2 and subsequently capture three stones in the sequence through 10, but Black builds up massive influence on the upper side. Note Black will not usually play 7 and 9 at an early stage, as these moves are good ko threats.

New Problems

Problem 1: Look at Diagram 1. Where should Black play after white 20?

Problem 2: Look at Diagram 2. As Black, how would you proceed after white 5 using different moves to those in Diagram 3?

Problem 3: Where should Black move to obtain the best result? What would be the result if both sides played the best moves possible?

Want to find out more? Come to Ben's Cafe (03-3202-2445, www.benscafe.com) in Takadanobaba, Tokyo, where the English-speaking go community congregates every Sunday. You can enjoy free lessons, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.

Van Zeijst is a four-time European go champion and European representative at the Fujitsu World Championship.