Hello everyone,
The "tower peep" has always made me a bit uncomfortable. Because of this, I am often hesitant to play moves that lead to the peep later. However, the prerequisite shape often comes up in stronger games that I watch which leads me to conclude that I just don't know enough about the shape to use it effectively.
Now I know a few things, such as the default defense after the sequence peep-connect-push-block-cut is to extend:
After this, the attachment at a and attacking
are miai. And, in the absence of surrounding stones this definitely seems good for white.But this assumes a ladder on
, does it not? What should I play if the ladders are unfavourable or a ladder breaker is a forcing move? The net *may* work, but leaves a ton of outside forcing moves.In a recent game of mine, I ran into the following situation:
In this case, no ladders work for white. And, making the problem worse, the W stones are being pressed up against a corner enclosure, so building thickness isn't really an attractive option, and a net doesn't seem to work either. If W blocks below, B pushes and cross-cuts and takes sizable profit in the top. If W blocks to the right, B pushes and cross-cuts and the W string looks very vulnerable especially with moves like B@Q13 available.
In the actual game, I blocked to the right, but then got lucky because B pushed and cut to the left instead of the right, and then promptly made a mis-read that allowed me to get away with a superior result. But this exchange still exposed my unease and unfamiliarity with the tower peep (as well as costing 1m50s of thinking time in a 10 minute game, which lead to severe time pressure later).
In retrospect, I have an inkling that I should have blocked the middle, sacrificed the stone at the top and tried to take profit either in the middle or with the attachment at H17, aiming to capture the area around F17.
Anyone have any thoughts on the situation? Or general advice on how to handle the tower peep with surrounding stones better?
.
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at N18, even. Although, I guess there's more aji this way: