Commentary 2

White: Honinbo Shuwa
Black: Murase Yakichi
Jigo

1 XI, same year (1860-12-12), same venue.

1 ~ 100

White 20 is not normally a shape one would play happily, but here it is a special ploy.

The usual thinking for White 26 would definitely be first to add a move to the four white stones. Leaving them as they are, however, and also choosing a high approach move are a concept out of the ordinary.

Black 33 is somewhat slack. Here he should extend to 37, and if White cuts at 33 Black can pull back to o and play more vigorously. However, once Black plays the way he does, White's hanging connection at 38 becomes extremely good shape and there is a feeling that Black's opening development has lagged behind a little. Also, later on, 49 is very slack. He should look for something sharper by advancing one line further to ■ or switching elsewhere to play ▲. Still later, on reaching move 61, he absolutely should not play this. The reason is that once he has played this stone, the White cut at 64 becomes inevitable and White can build up strength by exploiting this. The variations cause the entire corner to belong to White, which means something of a loss for Black. Ultimately, it allowed White to get a tied game. Consider the shape if this harmful 61 had not been played and had Black played directly at 63. Surely Black would have gained extra points and so could have won.

101 ~ 225

Book II-17a (Sgf version: )

Notes

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