Shusaku Game #19

In this game Shusaku played against his teacher, his teacher took back the handicap advantage and never lose it. Key battle started over right top corner-White managed to took the corner from inside then attack the Black wall from outside, when the Black retreated, White's group over lower right also joined the hunting and got stronger. After that Black group final out, White took the sente and started to invade the bottom. Black tried but could not do much against the invading White group down the bottom, instead White took over the whole Left side-Black had chance to start a ko down the lower Left corner, my question would be was that Black's only chance and could Black win the ko? consider White prepared a couple big ko threat down the bottom.

Shusaku Game #18

This game is almost as short as last one, Black calmly gave White left bottom edge in exchange for a thick wall and a weak White group in the middle of left edge.

The turning point is over top right corner, Shusaku played a move not only expanded B's moyo also reduced White's top influence, if White responded over the top then White would felt being taken advantage of...So White decided to expand lower Right corner and curb the possibility of large Black moyo along the right edge. This gave Black opportunity for a nice combo punches-first Black closed White over Right top corner in sente!, then Black started to attack the weak White group, and eventually cut a big tail off that group...Another good example of building influence and applied it to attacking.

Shusaku Game #17

This perhaps is the shortest game in the book, it highlighted how Shusaku used influence and how he built up influence.

The opening of the game showed both of them was planning for a long and slow game. Things started to change when White gave Black a wall over left top corner. And after White got into the big fight over top right corner, Black first built up influence from outside and then turned in top right corner into a Ko fight-further more he took advantage of White's worry of giving Black extra Ko threats, Black broke up the White group in the lower right corner.

If White wastes two moves over right top corner to clean things up, the whole lower left and lower right could be taken over by Black....so White resigned.

Shusaku Game #16

After a loss in the prior game, Shusaku obviously tried harder in this game while White was a bit over-complacent, this is shown when White chased Black dragon to the left which limited White's left top corner, but also gave Black opportunity to form territory between the dragon and the bottom left corner stone. When Black decided to capture the left bottom White stones, Shusaku must have reached the conclusion that the center Black dragon could not be killed-this sure showed the strength of his skill.

Shusaku Game #15

This is a game in which Shusaku seemed to lost his grip. White made a move at left bottom corner, to which Black decided to play somewhere else. Black used 4 moves to surround one white stone at right bottom corner which was not a good choice as White not only invaded the bottom edge also put the weak Black bottom group in his crosshair. In order to find two eyes for that weak group, Black gave White a big influence outside. And when Black tried built moyo over right top corner, White brilliantly sacrificed stoned and built another wall along right edge, gave him potential to made a huge territory in the center. After that, Black made move to invade the top of the board, White let it live but built the third wall around the center. After sacrificing a few more stones, White removed some bad Aji of the left top corner and started to work on killing the left top Black group-that group only had one and half gote eyes at best....Black resigned

Shusaku Game #14

The turning point of this game is when w tried to attack Black's left center group, instead of running, Black attacked the top center group of White. This is truely 3 birds with one stone: it indirectly help out the left center group; it strengthen the top center black group; and sure it also attacks the top center white group. During the fight around left bottom corner, black gave up 3 stones but took over the whole lower left corner. White put forward its last effort in attacking Black's top center group but because White's own center top group is weak, White didn't get much while Black not only escaped but also expanded the top right corner territory.

Shusaku Game #13

This game showed the superb ability of Shusaku is attacking, sense of balance and flexibility. From the very beginning, black built thickness over left top corner and push White groups towrds to the left edge and top edge. This thickness later on joined force with Black's left bottom group in attacking White's left center group and bottom group-White kind of sacrificed the left center group in order to kill Black's right bottom corner-but Black got a large territory around lower center in one hand, on the other hand White's left corner group became weaker, to make it even worse for White the right bottom Black corner is not that a clean kill-this provided black with much needed ko threats when the fight in the center turned into a ko fight...Over the ko fight, Black let White connect home but increased its center territory significantly. Desparately to catch up in yose, White took Black's right top corner, but pretty much gave up the center top territory in the process-talk about "much ado about nothing"!

Definition of a winner in Go battle? firstly is overall thickness, your opponent can do nothing to you unless you donate something; secondly, if your opponent kills, he would rather not kill; thirdly, when your opponent lives/escapes, he would rather ..... then you have reached a new level.