Takemiya's cosmic goMasaki Takemiya is one of the most
popular go players in Japan. His ready smile and wry wit make his TV
commentaries a pleasure to watch. Although his tournament successes
have not been as stellar as Cho Chikun's and Koichi Kobayashi's, he
has won his share of the big three titles--the Honinbo six times and
the Meijin once.
What really captures the attention of his fellow professionals
and go fans is his patented cosmic-go strategy. Most of the top
players today place emphasis on securing territory early in the
game. But not Takemiya. Instead, he maps out large spheres of
influence in the center of the board, defying his opponents to
invade. When they do invade, more often than not he succeeds in
gaining more territory by attacking the invading stones. At times,
his attacks are so fierce that he kills off the invaders, forcing
his opponents to resign. In Game Two of the 1996 Meijin title match,
he defeated Cho Chikun in exactly this way. I would like to show you
this game as a typical example of Takemiya's cosmic-go style.
Takemiya is Black.
In the skirmish up
to White 18 in the upper right in Figure 1, Cho secures about
eight points of territory, while Black begins to map out a huge
sphere of influence on the right side. Cho then takes control of the
areas in the lower right and upper left corners up to White 26,
while Takemiya establishes a presence on the left side with Black
21, 23, and 29.
White 30 is a tight move that makes the territory in the upper
left corner fairly secure. With Black 31, Takemiya boldly stakes out
a claim to nearly a quarter of the board. Cho now has to play White
32 to prevent Takemiya from further expanding his influence in the
top right.
Look at the position after Takemiya plays Black 41. He has laid
claim to a vast valley of territory--"cosmic in scale"--in the
center of the board as indicated by the dotted lines. If Cho doesn't
invade or somehow reduce Takemiya's territorial framework, he will
lose by a big margin.
When
Cho pushes into Black's framework with White 42 in Figure 2,
Takemiya falls back to Black 43. Takemiya has now mapped out more
than 80 points of territory on right. If he can secure it with one
more move, he will have more than enough to win. Therefore, Cho must
invade. This he does by attaching the black stone with White 44. Cho
struggles to make a living group with the sequence up to White 64,
but Black 65 kills the white group in the bottom right. That is, it
prevents White from making the shape that would enable his stones
there to make two eyes.
When
Takemiya played the triangled stone in Figure 3, Cho resigned
because all of his stones (the marked white ones) in the lower right
quadrant were dead. Black has more than 70 points there--far more
territory than White.
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