Art of sacrifice
Here is a recent game
between Iliya Shikshin and Curtis Tang AGA 7d. Curtis, 17 years old chinese
player, is well known in USA.
The game was clearly
to black advantage, black managed to capture 2 white groups only after 90
moves. Black got huge territory in comparison white got thickness. Was it a good
trade? Or better say White sacrificed a lot of his stones to get thickness. Most
of kibitzers were skeptical about white's chances in the game:
Javaness [2d]: white
looks wasted
Onmyoji [-]: now he
is desperate
tianren122 [3d?]: w
fails...
Inglorious [1d]: ive
never seen roln getting so dominated after 75 moves
FreeDoom [1d]: w can
simply resign, no?
And only one player
wasn't so assure about the result:
cheater [7d]: W is
winning dudes (I hope he was not sarcastic)
Later white used his
thickness to attack black's group. Iliya is really powerful at attacking, it's
worth learning how to use thickness!
In my opinion game
decisive move was Black 145. Black played keima, I believe it was an overplay
as white managed to cut it and start fight. I think simple jump would be enough
for black.
In the end Iliya
managed to kill big black dragon which looked very alive, even Danigabi was
surprised:
danigabi [5d]: im
really surprised this died
That's why it's
always fun to watch Roln's games; you never know what may happen in the game,
that's why you watch until the very end.