So I was perusing through some professional games and took a look at the Chinese City League and saw one of my old standby's, Cho Chikun, playing in the league. I took a look at his game, and found this really neat shape. It's not new. I found three games with this shape that were played back in 2009, the first game being Shikun Ryu vs. Rin Kono in one of the preliminary rounds for the Ouza. It goes like this:
I love attachment plays and this one is a doozy. Normally when your opponent attaches to y our stone...you react. In this case though, Black extends to 5 so that he can cede the corner to White and make groups on both sides. White 6...is new to me. I have never seen it before, but it ends up being a trade.
White clamps at 8, which doesn't capture the inner stones per se. Black plays up to 13, and White 14 is a tesuji. Can you read the rest out?
This is a common tesuji where we throw in and then connect at 24. Black can escape with A or play at B to take the outside. In the game, Black took B because it's pretty important, and White plays at one spot below A. I guess there is some aji of Black escaping, but he won't be able to save those three stones, so White's group isn't split. Black gets a strong outside, but the White stone isn't captured, and if it comes out strongly, then Black starts getting shredded.
Any thoughts on this new shape? How might you respond?
