In 1997 I was selected as the British representative to the 19th World Amateur in Sapporo. Unfortunately, a bad back forced my withdrawal and I ended up at the 20th in Tokyo in 1998.
In the Nihon Ki-in each morning there would be a pile of printed games that had been recorded the previous day and I would collect copies of each and look at the games to see if there was anything interesting among them. This game jumped out at me, since I could not see why Black had resigned, so I played the game out and still could not see. Just then the White player arrived and I quizzed him, mentioning that I had looked at the printed copy first, and he was rather taken aback that I was able to see it from the game record alone (he implied that he did not think that I was strong enough to see things like this from just the printed page). Then the Black player and others arrived and he was assailed from all sides why he had not seen that he could live. He muttered something about different rules and fled.
The Japanese have three names for the position in the lower left quarter of the board:
両頭蛇の生き double-headed snake life
双竜の生きdouble-dragon life
欠目生き false eye life
i.e. westerners have added a head to the dragons.

The double-headed snake is a known beastie called the amphisbaena, of which the following was said.

Sir Thomas Browne- " a smaller kind of Serpent, which moveth forward and backward, hath two heads...Which double formations do often happen unto multiparous generations, more especially that of Serpents; whose productions being numerous, and their Eggs in chains or links together (which sometime conjoyn and inoculate into each other) they may unite into various shapes and come out in mixed formations."

However, there are two kinds of double-headed snake – one with two heads at one end, and the mythical one with a head at each end.

Since today is the first of the Chinese year of the Snake, I thought that this would be an appropriate game to wish you a Happy Chinese New Year!
Best wishes.

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No aji, keshi, kifu or kikashi has been harmed in the compiling of this post.
http://www.gogod.co.uk

Ha ha ha, a very cool one! If you hadn't dropped the hint with false-eye-life I would never have found it, too ^^

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Strangely enough, in my recent game with breakfast there was an unplayed variation in which I lived, avoiding a seki or semedori, with a similar sort of false eye life I had not encountered before. Is there a name for this shape (at f13)?

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm1
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . O O . . O O X . . |
$$ | . . . O O . O O . O X O X O O X X . . |
$$ | . . . O X X X X O O X X O . . X . X X |
$$ | . . O X X . . X X X X . O . . X X . . |
$$ | . . O X . O O O O X O O O X . X X . X |
$$ | . O X X X X O X O X . . X X . O O X X |
$$ | . O . O X T X X . X O O X . O O X X X |
$$ | O O . O O X X X X X X X O O O X X X O |
$$ | O X X . O O X O . O . X X O . O X X O |
$$ | O O X X O X O O . O X . O O O O O O O |
$$ | X X . O X X . . . X . X X O X . O . O |
$$ | . . . O . X O O . X . . O X X . O O X |
$$ | . X X X X O X . O O O O O O X X X X X |
$$ | X O X O . . X . O O X X X O X O O X X |
$$ | . O X X . . . X X O . . . O O O X X . |
$$ | O . O O X X X . O O . X X X O O O O X |
$$ | . O O X O X O O . . O . . O X X O X . |
$$ | . . . X O O . . O . O X X O X . X . X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . O X X . . . . . X . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Am I missing something obvious? Black plays D9, at which point D8 and A7 are miai. It looks like two eyes there to me.

Yeah, but A7 is cut by B7. Normally this would turn this eye false. But since White can't Atari Black anywhere it's a real eye.

And yeah, as far as I know this is all the magic in the position. It sure lost its touch by explaining : (

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

I have had opponents resign for unknown reasons before. Victory by demoralization.

@Uberdude: Isn't your position just a mearimenashi? Of course your one eye looks more interesting than usual, but still...