In 11x11 toroidal Go, aiming to make eyes isn’t always easy, nor is it a good primary goal to aim at. One strategy can be to try to split the opponent into two eyeless groups and then aim at killing one of them. I have in mind a series of blog posts about games involving this theme.
For my first post on this topic, here is a game where I succeeded in splitting up my opponent’s groups, but I made a big mistake by letting one of them live too easily. That mistake should have cost me the game, but then it turned out my opponent didn’t see the danger for the other group until it was too late!
Here is a short resume of the game. For more details, I invite you to look through some of the variations I’ve provided. I hope you enjoy having a look!
The fuseki here is interesting. After 14 White has a coherent strategy but 16 may be a little too far into Black’s framework. Black tries to separate White into two groups and the ensuing fighting is quite tough. Black 39 is a mistake as it lets White live too easily. When White lives with 44 Black is in a difficult situation and has to try to kill the other white group, or at least use an attack on it to gain a lot of territory.
In the next few moves White missed several opportunities to reinforce. After 66 it took me a long time to come up with the tenuki at 67 in order to keep on trying to kill White. After 69 things look very promising for Black but I was only certain that White was dead after 77. Funnily enough instead of resigning straight away White played on until all the stones were removed from the board.
Edit log
(2021-07-05): Minor edits/typos + a little change to the go commentary. (a] “…for White” → “…for Black” in variation for move #16; b] capital letter “I” at the start of a sentence; c] added link to SL for “tenuki”; d] “fuseki” → “opening”; e] revised the diagram at the end of the 2nd branch of the variation given for white 18)
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