Ko Fights Galore!

Kghin, is a well known Hong Kong youth that plays on KGS and have been showing steady improvement as that has impressed many. Recently he was finally promoted to 7d. Though he has a very nice record as a 6d, he hasn’t played many 8-9ds. More info on him can be found in his profile. Zchen is Zhaonian Chen from the United States, who has won several important U.S. tournaments. In this exciting back and forth battle, zchen struggles to come back from an earlier overplay and the game is one big exciting battle!

Kghin opens with a sanrenesi and the game is normal until White 14, which is an overplay. The proper continuation is shown in the branch. Kghin punishes zchen according, though Black seems to make a mistake with 35, it would have be honte to eliminate the ko instead. In the game, the ko aji still exists. The game continues without any glaring points of interest until White 60, which deviates from the joseki (which would be at C7). I believe zchen was attempting to create threats from which to use his ko aji in the lower right. When black uses threats against the upper right corner, I wonder if it is not better for White to take the ko instead. His lower right corner seems about the same size and there is still a little aji on top. Eventually the ko fight ends with White cutting on a lone black stone and attempting to create a massive moyo on top.

After Black invades with 111, he plays a strong hane at 117, I am not sure whether this is an overplay, but in any case it led to a huge fight in the center. The fight seemed to be going well, but 165 seems to be a mistake, it seems much easier to play M8 there. White 166 is a deadly blow to Black, severing his vital cutting stones. The result is another ko. The exchange seemed to be okay for White until White 188, it was very confusing why he played for the ko when he could have just connected with E7 (by threatening the 5 stones). Then, even more confusingly, he abandons the ko completely. Black 193 is another odd move. White seemed to have victory within his grasp until he played 200. It would have been easier to play B17 instead, allowing Black to connect and winning safely in yose. However, Black 209 was a big blunder, needlessly filling in a Black liberty. White punished with the combination of 212, 214, and 216, a nice tesuji combo. It leads to another ko. White F17 is an odd threat however, allowing Black to live in the corner anyways. The game seemed more or less over at that point. Then Black initiated another ko on the bottom White territory, a picnic ko for Black. White’s threatened with 238, Black ignored. I think Black could have won by answering as well, but it is set up for White’s one last bid, to try to live inside Black’s moyo. I do not know if it could have succeeded (too lazy to read all of that ;)) However, White dies and resigns.