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Uncovering Your Blind Spots by Richard Bozulich February 29, 2024 |
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Life and death positions often arise in games where the standard moves do not successfully resolve the situation. Sometimes you need to think 'outside the box' and play moves or make sacrifices that are completely unexpected. These unexpected moves are your blind spots, and to uncover them you must analyze all positions freely and widely. You may then come up with moves that defy commonsense but miraculously resolve these position in your favor. Of course the accuracy in your analysis is also important, but this comes only from years of regularly solving life-and-death problems. Here are three problems in which the winning moves are not obvious and you could easily overlook them if they arose in any of your games. |
 Problem 1. White to play |
Problem 1. White to play and kill If Black can capture the marked stone, he can live. But Black is also threatening to make eyes in the corner by capturing two stones. How can White kill Black? |
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 Problem 2. White to play |
Problem 2. White to play and live Clearly, White doesn't have enough space to make two eyes. If he is going to live, he will have to exploit a defect in Black's position. |
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 Problems 3. Black to play |
Problem 3. Black to play and live If Black is going to live he will have to exploit the aji of his marked stone in the corner. How can he do this? |
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