Go Seigen v. Hosai Fujisawa.

Monday night I went to another one of Nick's classes at the Seattle Go Center. I foolishly didn't bring anything to take notes, so I ended up with illegible scrawl in borrowed pen on the back of a Home Depot receipt. It was a nice little collision of my past and current lives.

The lesson was in memory of Go Seigen, who just died on Nov. 30, and was "considered by many players to have been the greatest Go player in the 20th century." Nick talked us through this famous game which basically ruined Hosai Fujisawa's career in March 1953.

That was the first pro game I'd seen. The most striking feature, for me, was how much air was still on the board at the point when Nick stopped playing it out because everything was more or less settled. It makes sense. A skilled player can look at a loose configuration, see the various ways to connect it, and what each of those moves is worth, approximately. Armed with that much information, yeah, a lot of those local moves just aren't as important as something larger elsewhere. As an unskilled player, I bet I play relatively densely and slowly because I just can't see enough to know whether my local fights are resolved and I error on the side of caution.

List of hits:
Every stone must serve multiple purposes. Practice identifying all the things a stone does will help me understand the board more holistically and be more efficient. 

Balance slow and fast. Playing a slow move gives you the power to play a fast move in that area next. If you play a fast move first, you'll need to come back and play a slow move to balance it. This, of course, relies on the ability to properly distinguish slow from fast moves. 

Safety first. I don't fully grasp all the implications yet, but his example was something about setting up the potential for shape or life before getting crazy with riskier moves.

Anchor for invasion. I tend to think of invasions as air-drops behind enemy lines. The stone Nick was talking about (move 30) was out in the middle, near enough several openings that it could be used to support an invasion. Presumably, the invasion could run out and connect, cutting the opponent's wall, or the anchor could simply apply pressure from both sides. Neat.

It might be time soon for me to start cracking open joseki. Even reading about them makes my head spin, which will be fun and beneficial to push through.

New terms:
Avalache - a joseki with several variations that follows from this starting sequence. See also: large avalanche and small avalanche.

Shoulder Hit - a "sly" diagonal reduction move on the fourth line that is difficult to catch or cut off. 

Armpit Hit - the opposite of a shoulder hit. Usually a bad move. 

Tesuji - "a clever play, the best play in a local position, a skillful move, a special tactic," Appears to be a broad complimentary label for about a million different things, many of which have their own special names. 

Miai - two options wherein if one player takes one, the other player can take the other, amounting to an approximately even trade-off.

Jubango - a 10-game challenge match.