Interesting new moves

.
.
Hi everybody! During the last few weeks I spent a lot of time replaying recent pro games and -as expected- found a lot of innovative new ideas and patterns which I want to share with you. Some of those I already studied in detail and I might give my conclusions later. For starters I just want you to check out the beauty of pro-thinking in the following diagrams.


Dia 1: A funny jump

This game was played as a part of the 2nd Japanese Yugen Cup at the 12th of January 2009. The players are Osawa Kenro 1p (White) and Kato Atsushi 8p (Black).

Black 7: Normally Black 7 is played at the lower edge, mostly at K4 which would form the famous "Kobayashi Koichi" opening. Here Kato decided to develop more rapidly, jumping directly to 7 which is consistently followed by the tsuke at 9 and the pushing moves of 15-21.

As a result Black 7 looks just perfect and Black won the game by 3,5 points.





.
.

Dia 2: Breaking away from the conventional Joseki -a strong hane


This game is was played during the 3rd round of the 9th Chinese Ricoh Cup (8.2.2009). The players are Shi Yue 4p (White) and Sun Tengyu 3p (Black).

White exchanged 8 for 9 before attaching at 10 which is in itself still quite a new move, even though we have seen it for some years now.
As the ladder favors Black he wants to play the Joseki given below, trying the Hane at 11.
However White played 8 considering this possibility and counters with the severe Hane at 16.

Now there are quite some variations but as Black does not back off the fight results in a ko.



.
.
.
.


Dia 2.1:

Up to 40 White takes the ko, giving him an extremely thick position on the top. Of course after 42 the game is still difficult, but based on what I think and -more importantly- what a pro I asked about this thinks, we can say that the result is better for White.

As a result W also won the game by 2,5 points.








.
.


Dia 3: Push, Cut, Fight

The last game I want to show you today was played by Ding Wei 9p (White) and Zhou Heyang 9p (Black) as part of the 23rd Chinese Tianyuan Tournament (13.2.2009).

The opening up to the attachement of 14 is often seen in actual play, but recently some pros try the push and cut of 15 and 17 setting up a difficult fight.

The most important part is, that W can not use 32 to kill Black at 33 because the semiai in the corner will either result in ko or Seki which is both bad for White as Black already took the Ponnuki with 31. Black forces with 35 before playing the nice Tesuji of 37. Now W has to play 38 at the top because Black could play there blocking Whites path in Sente, which is inconceivable. However the general opinion seems to be -at least among the Japanese Insei- that this result is quite good for Black as Ws group on the right side is still weak and Black got a very strong ponnuki.

Black won this game by resignation.