Li League - Match 13 - Wakagoi vs Igo & Shogi

Preview

The key match here should be the 2nd Board. Both of the team Captains are facing the '3rd or 4th' player of the respective teams so Ueno Risa is taking on Moro Arisa and Fujisawa Rina on board 3 has Kobaysahi Izumi. Which means both are likely wins for the respective team. It all comes down to Suzuki Ayumi's chances of beating Xie Yimin.

Board	Wakagoi	Igo&Shogi	Result	Winner
Board 1	Ueno Risa	Moro Arisa	W+R	Ueno Risa
Board 2	Suzuki Ayumi	Xie Yimin	W	Xie Yimin
Board 3	Kobayashi Izumi	Fujisawa Rina	B	Fujisawa Rina

Cast is here

Board 1 - Ueno Risa (White) vs Moro Arisa (Black)

Opening

Arisa opened with a 34, Risa 44 opposing then Black played a 向井 小目 (mukai komoku) or  another 34 facing self with White doing likewise. White knight approached this last stone with Black pincering and white jumping out with a 2 space, white keeping approximately level with a corner extension same side allowing Black sente to take a 2 space extension on the top left. White now knight approached the top right corner and Black Shusaku diagonalled allowing white to knight approach the empty skirt of the top left extension. Black also ignored to knight approach White's remaining 44 corner with a 1 space extension being made as counter. Black now pincered into the middle of white's rather spread out top two stones and White attached, for safety, to one of the corner diagonals. A localised fight now broke out top right and bottom left so the opening is likely over.

Middle 

The fight top right was complex but one of Risa's known preferences is localised fighting, Risa managed to get Black into a huge clump (but only around 2 points ahead) which became important when Black tried to generate life by pushing into the bottom right and the two support stones there (5 & 7 above) white then essentially formatted just enough pressure to force Black to take  a white position to live allowing White to lock those stones in.

As you can see the green stones are likely all dead but when killed white secured its own position at the bottom which meant the K7 group was under pressure and this with the L14 ish area having access to the center meant White could roll in.

Black was under a lot of time pressure at this point and white was heavily (for a Professional Game) ahead at around 18 up when Black played the empty triangle below at the Green skull which unfortunately allowed White to massacre the entire center by pushing into it's second potential eye.

Great game by Risa.

Board 2 - Suzuki Ayumi (White) vs Xie Yimin (Black)

Opening

Ayumi opened star point as did Yimin, Black then 34 facing own as did White. Black then 33'd the bottom left - and carried out an unusual Joseki - White had moved into the almost standard AI defence but instead of connecting Black extended out. Likely to give options towards Blacks other corner stone and using the two other invaders as sacrifices or ko threats? White switched back to 1 space high approach the Black 34 and the default Joseki rolled out with white extending high, Black then repeated the move on the other 34 with White pincering very loosely so also extending, Black large knigthed away allowing White to spend some moves to pressure  the D15 stone to gain some strength, rather than reinforce the right Black rolled into the corner instead. Attention now moved to the top right and black and white now ran out in lines.

Middle 

The game was almost perfectly balanced at this point with Black having managed to erase the Komi advantage but white now managed to use the weakness White had generated in the bottom left to swing advantage back here

The move 70 was key, Black defended as shown but now if White get's to play E2 then the corner stones are almost  dead, if Black blocks whites connection then C2 ataris the 3 and anything else allows white to connect. - Admittedly White would need to protect B4 first as otherwise Black will get out that way but this means Black owes some defensive moves.. Now Black did atari first but this leaves to a stronger white external position leaning into a higher wall.

 

End

End game was key for once as the game was so close and at Black pulled it back from White being 6 points up even to a tiny lead (that amusingly occurred as the casting teams switched causing much gasping from the Wakagoi casters here) but from the looks of things it swung Blacks advantage to 0.4 points so essentially even and played correctly even then there was no mistake to allow the lead to go back. White wins a close game and Xie apparent ability to pull the right move out of her hat in restricted time high pressure games shows itself again!

Board 3 - Kobayashi Izumi (Black) vs Fujisawa Rina (White)

Opening

Rina opened star point as did White, Black then went 34 facing opponent and White took nirensei. Black then knight approached/extended to the lower left star and white ignored to knight approach the Black 34 stone. Black pincered/ extended and White 2 space jumped out (matching Moro Arisa's earlier defence looking at it). Instead of just enclosing Black kicked the lower stone causing a creep upwards before the 1 space enloosure was made. White now invaded slap in the middle of the two (wide ) Black stones and a huge fight broke out. So opening over..

Middle 

The fight is hard to judge at my level but you had a white corner, a black almost stick with no eyes, a white stick with no eyes, a black stick with no eyes then a white horizontal line with no current eyes then a Black corner and the game proceeded with each player pushing with each of their groups.

This fight just carried rolling on up the left then to the right over the center before descending again to the bottom right and White was close the entire time until end game started.

End

White was behind but at move 172 she attempted to connect her stones up but it looks like was a square too short. O9 was apparently better and would have kept the game within 2 points.

But playing there meant Black could kill of the entire White central stones and white resigned being about 48 points down..

Well that meant the final is not sown up. Senko was already in having not lost once and Igo & Shogi cannot be beaten by any of the remaining teams who have both taken a loss in the 2nd round. So even one of the teams 'wins out' then can only win 3 more matches giving 4 which cant beat Igo&Shogis 5.

So the remaining teams are likely playing for pride and not being last now whereas both Senko and Igo&Shogi are trying to play for the advantage of 'if a draw in the final and 2 wins each then the team that enters the finals in 2nd place only wins if the opposing teams Captain and Vice Captain both lose'

So objectively since Senko's Captain is Ueno Asami that might happen but is not something to be relied on which means to win Igo&Shogi would need to beat everyone apart from Asami and since Chiaki Mukai is in that team it is also risky. A draw though is much more a possibility.