Li League - Match 16- Senko vs Nagoya

 

Preview

Next match up is Senko vs Nagoya. Since both the favourites lost out in the last two matches you cannot guarantee anything but I would be surprised if Senko lose this also as the pairings are about as bad as can be for Nagoya

So Senko has managed to match the undefeated (in League) Ueno Asami verus the Nagoya Co captain. Then the Senko co-captain is taking on Nagoya's 3rd stringer before the Nagoya Captain Kato Chie takes on Senko's 3rd stringer Tsjui Hana - who like Chie has lost most League matches but has shown little fear in taking on stronger opponents..

Board	Senko	Nagoya	Result	Winner
Board 1	Ueno Asami	Nyu Eiko	W+1.5	Ueno Asami
Board 2	Mukai Chiaki	Takao Mari	B+R	Mukai Chiaki
Board 3	Tsuji Hana	Kato Chie	B+R	Kato Chie

Full match cast is here

Board 1 - Ueno Asami (White) vs Nyu Eiko (Black)

Opening

Now this game was on a knife edge throughout the entire game..Eiko had Black and opened dual 44 with Asami going for 44 then 34 facing self. Black then knight approached the 44 with White pincering high Black then switching to approach the 34  1 space high, almost the usual Joseki played out with White's last move being high and Black's last shoulder hitting white's pincer stone to take advantage of the tiny wall generated. White then took a 2 space wide bottom left extension which allowed Black to push into the pincered stone above with White defending with a 1 space jump. Black then threatened to cut the 2 space corner extension and White blocked allowing her to jump 2 spaces to threated 2 white stones. This left side fight grew and grew so the opening is essentially done now..

Middle Game

Black used its strength to squeeze and force white to run out and once Black was alive started pushing the edges, game lead was generally Blacks but by only 1 point.... Black eventually secured her own corner with White jumping into the 33 of the other - this generated an interesting Joseki choice with White relying perhaps on her groups close by to take a stronger line by haneing Blacks hane here

  Eiko then did a lovely job of trapping white in the corner (including a clever sacrifice to push white to push black into an extension she wanted to do anyway). What was especially interesting is that Black seemed to be throwing away her trapping stones (5 or so) to allow her to build a wall to potentially kill whites central stones (14 or so in 2 groups). White looked to take this offer (and dropped 10 points behind!)

Interestingly the key stone here is the soon to be set up Ko at J16. For Black to trap those white stones she needs to ensure White does not connect the threatened groups to the top group and to do this she had to threaten to kill the top group. It looks like AI recommends using that as a threat and instead bending around to surround the top right group instead (White would take the scared green stones but Black would get a wall) like so

Instead Black continued the KO by capturing at K16 which admittedly put those 2 groups back under threat but White is the top lady in Japan and she both saved the top group and got the bottom right more 'out' this then allowed White to kill the G11 stones and re-threaten the upper (which she did succeed in killing) but this allowed Asami to soak up much of the bottom right corner and pull the game back to a 1 point Black lead - Black had through most of this time 10-20 seconds per move and Asami had around 12 minutes spare so Black was under huge time pressure. This lead to a single tiny end game mistake that cost Black the game. AI says the best move is here

She did not play it so white grabbed it instead and Eiko lost out what would have been a huge victory..What a game.

Board 2 - Mukai Chiaki (Black) vs Takao Mari (White)

Opening

Chiaki with Black took 44 and 34 facing self with Mari with white dual 44s, Black then knight approached the lower 44 with White Knighting off and Black attaching, a corner Joseki then played out which gives White Sente to Knight approach the lower right Black 34, Black Shusaku diagonalled and White took a 2 space extension for a base, with Sente returned Black now approached the other White corner also with a Knight and White ignored to push Black down on the lower left (trying perhaps to restrict any moyo the previous approach could otherwise have made?) . Black seemed to dislike this and instant hane'd that push with White instant cutting this led to Black surrounding the invading stones and connecting to it's approach above.

Middle Game

  As with a lot of these pro games a big fight now kicked off White had to try and live behind the Black surround whilst Black promptly approached White's low wall to soak up territory of her own. Black was getting the better of it slightly until White trapped 3 black stones and took the lead

It was an even ish game until White made a mistake on move 184 that killed the entire top right.

The suggestion appears to be that White instead threaten to kill the Q17 group by playing P16 as so

So these moves seem to provide White with the temp to play I and the group is alive.

Anyway you don't tend to come back from a 23 point error against a Professional and White resigned, relatively, soon after.

Board 3 - Tsuji Hana (White) vs Kato Chie (Black)

Opening

Both sides went dual 34 facing away/facing then Black knight approached the lower left with a Shusaku diagonal defence allowing Black to 1 space enclose the top right corner. White then knight approached the other remaining Black corner with Black pincering (and extending from it's newly enclosed corner, nice) and White jumping out lightly. Black then kicked the knight stone to plsy out the Joseki and make sure White had no shape, also nice. This did allow White Sente to shoulder kick the pincering stone a fact white Black did not care about to instead knight approach the last corner following excellent opening technique. White ignored to stengthen it's shoulder hit stone by descending down and Black again ignored  to 2 space wide double pincer the top left stone (and extend again from an extension). White started to Diagonal out and Black delightedly 1 space extended to the center to make potential territory and to carry on threatening White, White had to switch to shoulder hit the other pincer stone and after some moves white was out, Black was also out with some shape and had made top territory.

Middle Game

A fight at the top now broke out as White tried to reduce Blacks moyo there but Black was to strong and though white lived Black used the resultant running fight to eventually connect to the bottom and kill the original approaching stones... There's not much to say except that Chie outmatched Hana in this game and Hana eventually resigned when around 47 points behind..