Shusaku Game #9

After two losses, shusaku's opponent seemed to lost his balance in this game. Not sure whether Shusaku had extensive research on Taisha Joseki before this game or not, but it feels like he gained upper hand from the conflict around right bottom corner. In this game, Shusaku showed his skill in reducing the territory of his opponent pushing opponent's group in the second line or barely survive with two eyes; also worth learning was how he took care the possible ko near the left bottom corner-capturing 6 white stones. in desperation, White tried very hard in expanding its left top moyo-and again he kind of lost his balance, the moyo become too big, a small group of Shusaku managed to find two eyes and settle down comfortablely inside the moyo which resulted the quick finish of this game...Go very much is about balance and patience, perhaps because of Shusaku's outstanding skill, his opponent first lost his balance then lost his patience in the game.

Shusaku Game #8

Shusaku's opponent, White, made some directional mistake from beginning of the game basically giving Black a big territory across the top in exchange for some small "thickness" around left top and right top, but Black had already stubs on the right edge and left edge. After some smart maneuvers, White's walls showed their cracks and ended up being chased out by Black's left and right center groups. In the middle of game, Shusaku "forced" White's left bottom group live in sente, quite puzzling to me, I guess Shusaku either hate empty triangle shape very very much or was a super strong believer of the "gote no sente" . White got a chance to attack Black right center group but Black successful settle that group down and when black was running his left center group he dragged White 's left top group along, and because the earlier donation over the top-White was now short of Territory, White could not declare a truce with Black with a seki...and had to start a KO in the center but because the bottom White group had barely 2 eyes-actually best result for White bottom group is also live by KO, White just cannot win both KOs.

Shusaku Game #7

In Go or in life, big picture is very important. Shusaku demonstrated his outstanding flexibility and judgement-he left the top right corner for white to swallow, and gave w some chance to attack his top center group while himself cleanly executed the capture of white's big left bottom group. When black's top center group settled down with two eyes, white got no choice but to resign.

Shusaku Game #6

Lessons could be learnt from this game: first when you wanted to reduce opponent's territory, you could start with attacking a weak group of your opponent-good example is how w reduced b's bottom moyo, and when you run your weak group best way is to drag a weak group of your opponent along-just as b's attacking the top right w group. While Shusaku did lose this handi game, he did show some good tactics such as at bottom right-by threatening w to live by KO, b took a stone in sente.

Shusaku Game #5

In this game, we again get the chance to see how Shusaku ability to "Trade", first he captured the bottom right White group by leaving his botton left group under attack-which result to a "KO live", then traded that group with the tail of White in the center...In the end, another win for the future KiSei.

Shusaku Game #4

In Go, mastering how to play KO is important-you need to win important KOs or at least get some exhange in return should you lose the KO. This game featured one KO at bottom and one KO over the top, and the left center became hunting ground of KO threats for white but Shusaku managed to hold up the first KO fight and didn't give up much at the second KO fight.

It is always amazing how Shusaku prefer thickness over attacking, defence over offence. Good example is how easily he gave up the 3 stones in the center..."Good warriors make their stand on ground where they cannot lose and do not overlook anything that makes the enemy prone to defeat." as Suntzu said, Shusaku followed same principle.

Shusaku Game #3

This game is rather odd, Shusaku was shodan and his opponent was 3 dan but Shusaku played a literally "rock solid" opening-or a rather slow opening and I felt that even his opponent caught some of "Shusaku influenza" and made some slow move in the middle game.

Black won this game by 4 points without komi-perhaps as we all know corners are more efficient in getting territory and Shusaku got 4 corners in this game-the small moyo of white on the left side very likely sufferred from reduction in the endgame.

Shusaku Game #2

In this game Shusaku's opponent started a ko on on the top left taking the lead and used another ko at left bottom to fortify the lead...as we obviously can see, even genius like Shusaku had a rather humble beginning and needed to learn from losses.

Shusaku Game #1

This is the starting point my journey of reviving my own Go playing-I will try to replay one game of Shusaku (Xiu Ce) every one or two days from now on.