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Classic case of falling into a bullied situation.

This example is of a mistake by Cho Hun-hyeon in a 1987 title match with Seo Pong-su. The mistake was to play at 1 instead of A. Not playing at A allows White to play there and force Black to play inside an area dominated by White, which means he has to submit willy-nilly.

Seo continued as follows, Black having to suffer "heart-piercing submission" as the Korean commentary called it with 6, and with the prospect of having to face further humiliating moves on both sides of this minimalist Black group, which faces ending up with something like 10 points for the expenditure of at least 20 stones.

However, it is worth noting here that the Black group is not quite fully enclosed, and White followed up immediately with a mistake of his own which obviated Black's initial error. Like all bullies he was greedy. He played 1 at once and allowed White to come out with the 2, etc. The end result was that Black survived the bullying, made White's centre wall weak (making 21 necessary) and strengthened the lower-side territory by making it harder for White to play there. Perhaps worse, the White group in the lower left became a victim of bullying itself, with 22.

The correct play for White was to play at A - a way of erasing the lower left while consolidating his advantage in the centre (which would help deal with the Black area at the top). White would also thereby work his way towards plugging the gap around Black 2, which would mean White picking up mega-points in the lower left once the bullying proper could start.

If you choose to look at the complete game, you may wish to observe that White made another mistake with 72 which meant he had to submit to bullying up to 82. If he had sacrificed at 73 instead, he could have secured life in the corner in sente.

The full game in sgf form:

© John Fairbairn & T Mark Hall (GoGoD), London 2007.