I wrote a new lesson titled “The art of sacrifice” - inspired by a game I watched on IGS today.
It is about the following position (White to play):
Dia. 1
Read it if you want to find out how Dia.1 above is related to Dia.2 below 
Dia. 2
Yoda Norimoto 9d and Yamashita Keigo Kisei (who is also defending the Kisei title against Kobayashi Satoru) are fighting today to decide who will challenge the current Judan title holder, Cho Chikun.
The game is still undecided as I write this, but I was delighted by a tesuji that white (Yoda) played earlier in the game. White to play in dia 1 - where would you play? Hint: the lower-right corner is hot: black looks vulnerable in the corner, but what is the best way to attack him? White is also weak, he doesn’t really have many choices.
Dia 1
White 1 in dia 2 is a very nice tesuji - it takes advantage of black’s lack of liberties. If white 3 was in place to start with, white 1 would be easy to find, but in the game white 1 is surprising at first. Black is isolated in the corner after white 5 - black cannot push through on the left because white will block with atari.
Dia 2
So here is the second problem for today, easier than the first one: black to play and live in the lower-right corner in dia 3.
Dia 3
Just simply playing atari and pushing doesn’t lead anywhere: black is left with one eye. Some special measures are in order for black to live.
Dia 4
Sacrifice is the magic word: dia 5 is the best black can do, which is to fight a ko for his life (if white plays 4 at 5, for instance), but that’s of course much better than dia 4.
Dia 5
I saw this yose tesuji twice in the last few months, and I was surprised it didn’t ring any bell for me - there are not so many yose tesuji out there. Must be my memory making fun of me…
Here is the yose problem: black to play in the following diagram:
Dia 1
Check the new article I added on the website for the answer and some more detailed diagrams about this position. (Of course, try to find the answer by yourself before for the maximum learning experience).
I don’t even want to think about how many times I might have missed this relatively easy trick…
Oh, and if I’ll be writing yet another article on the same topic, please let me know
My name is Sorin Gherman. I studied Go as an insei in Japan, and I built 361points.com to share my Go experience with you.
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