Alejo's Tenuki

We all know what is a Hane, but what about the double hane?

On the right side we have a sample. A double hane is when you hane twice in a row on the same group. Here you can see how the stone 1 is limits white's growth in this column, so white has to move one line back. Black's 3rd stone pushes back white even more. Depending on the surrounding situation, white can play A, B or C.

A will be played if white is strong nearby and he isn't afraid of leaving cutting points. C will be played if white is very weak in this area and needs to protect the cut at all costs. B is somewhere in between this two positions, it defends the cut, but not as well as C does, and it is less passive than C.

This is a very important technique to apply into your games, but it is a double-edged sword. It can be of great use, pushing white back 2 lines, or even killing him. But it can also lead to a situation with two weak groups floating in the middle of the board because of the cutting points left during the double hane.

On this side we have one clear sample of a good double hane. As you can see, black played 3 making a double hane against the weak white groups.

White now is forced to defend his stones somehow, either A or B are good moves, though defending the cuts directly is not bad either.

If, for some reason, white tried to cut this double hane and black was strong nearby, W would have to face the lost of 1 to 3 stones. Can you read this continuation?

The double hane is best played when if forms a "tiger's mouth", because there is a stone defending both cuts at the same time. Then we don't talk about double hane any more, but about tiger's mouth.

While double hane is so powerful, it is also very dangerous for the one who uses it, so you need to have read all possible continuations and having a counter-plan for them, before doing such a move.

In this situation the double hane is calling for a cut. White will certainly cut at A or B due to his strenght nearby. In fact, even the single hane is a bit of an overplay, because white is able to cut there and black will have left a sacrificed stone which is currently purposeless.

Now let's talk about a specific double hane we see on beginner's games.

Double hane at the border

As we've all been beginners, we've all made this mistake. It is a typical mistake from beginners which we've all learned by being punished after doing it. In fact, I've recently found myself punishing it a few times on my students till they learn not to make the double hane on the border.

If you still don't know what I'm talking about, take a look at the picture on the right. If you think black 3 is a correct move, then you need to read this article. If you think black3 is wrong, you'd probably be able to read the appropriate punishement.

Most beginner's accept this B3 to be a good move, since it blocks white from entering his own territory and makes an atari at the same time. Have I ever talked about how important it is to know when to sacrifice stones? This is a paradigm.

This sequence on the left is the appropiate punishement by white. As you can see, W4 makes an atari, which B defends by killing the stone 2.

White then ataries from black's territory, so if Black just defends that ataried stone, he will lose the 4 stones. Black's only chance is to play at A for making a ko and trying to minimize the damage.

In the end, Black has lost 4 stones + 3 points of territory + whatever white takes from his territory. White's now infiltrated on black's territory and eyespace, so every single stone placed there will mean lots of points lots by black, so W benefits can range from 8 points to killing the whole black group.

Next time black won't make the double hane, and will play at W4, white will play at B5, black will atari and both will defend.

First of all, the most important: European Go Congress 2008 open for subscription. If you want to join the next EGC, you'll have to register there as soon as possible for the cheapest fees. This year it'll take place in Leksand, Sweden, from the 26th July to the 9th August.

If you are interested in professional news, you should know that the second game of the Meijin title has been already played and players are now on a draw. You can see the games and some uncommented variations at "Meijin 2007 - 361points.com". And based on the first game of this Meijin, Shorin created a very interesting entry on this blog: "Learning from professional games (1)".

On another level, far away from final games of the Meijin title, but equally interesting for its familiarity with our games, there is a nice post called "Don't Panic - at Because it's there".

On the last pack of recommended articles, I must say that there has been quite a lot of activity at GoDiscussions with some good topics going on.

1. "How's your intuition?": A user posts one situation from a professional game and asks player from different categories about their next move. One day is given for each category, so DDK answer first, then SDK and finally dan players. There are three posts of this "collection": One, Two and Three.
2. "Favorite Pro?": Some users discuss about their prefered pro player and their abilities.
3. "Studying amateur games": Discussions about the value of studying amateur games instead of professional ones. Here you'll find the "pros" and the "cons".
4. "Ladder breaker: How to respond it?": Rable shows us a real situation from a recent game and different users discuss about possible responses for a ladder breaker move. This discussion is held at a quite high level.

The day after Sabadell's Tournament I had to play the 2nd game in the Rioplatense Tournament. It was a game against a 13k KGS with 5 stones of handicap. The time settings were 10 minutes plus 15 minutes for 25 stones of Canadian byo-yomi. As you can see, the time settings don't allow much time to think in tsumegos or brilliant strategies, so I couldn't solve this tsumego correctly on the actual game but I managed to win anyway.

As you can see, black is not exactly on a bright position. This situation came after black not finishing the monkey jump sequence which started at A17 and ignoring too the settling move at A15. Black started realising he had to answer my moves after white 199... but it was too late... or not.

Last weekend I took part of the 2nd Sabadell tournament. Sabadell, for those who aren't from Spain, is a city close to Barcelona, which has it's own Go club.

It was the first tournament I played on real life and I was quite nervous indeed. It was a handicapped tournament with 25 minutes and 30 seconds of japanese byo-yomi, based on McMahon with 4 rounds and rated for the European Go Federation. As there were few of us (only 14) and the levels ranged from 20k to 3d, there were lots of high handicapped games. It was won by a 4k, who played incredible game against a 2d when both of them had gone undefeated, involving a huge seki on one side of the board.

Winning the first game against calmed me down a little bit. And assuming I would lose the second one, even before playing, allowed me to relax myself even more: playing against a 3d is not an easy game even with 9 stones.

The problems appeared after lunchtime. I had two games against 8k players with 2 stones on my favour. For some reason, I relaxed myself too much and started playing too aggressively, which seems to be a nice idea against weaker players, but it turns out to be a really suicidal technique against stronger ones.

In the end, if we only talk about the results, I got 1 victory and 3 defeats. If we talk about the experience, I'd say I learned a lot, though I think I still have some to digest.

You can see some photos of the event Photos 1 and Photos 2.

It's nice to see how people have comeback from their holidays and started talking on Go forums. Here you have a list of the last topics which I thought could be interesting for the whole community: