Best broken ladder

[John Fairbairn]

Some of you may recall the frisson of excitement in 2003 when Yi Se-tol created a broken ladder against Hong Chang-sik to win a spectacular game - he accepted a losing ladder just to get a move eventually on the other side of the board to kill a group there.

It was admittedly a spectacular creation but I felt then that the reaction was a little too gushing. I still do. The reason was that there was a much better example, from China.

I was reminded of it today when doing some more work on ancient Chinese games.

Have a look at this game. The last move is by Black but it appears simply that the last few moves are missing (or maybe Black resigned after making his move), but several top pros have confirmed that White does kill Black. Actually the required moves seem simple enough. Hardly enough to trouble Shi Dingan, at any rate - he was of Meijin class (in the mid 18th century).

Even though you know what's coming I still think you will gasp.

[Uberdude]

Very nice, I'd not seen that before. But I think gushing over a spectacular failed ladder once every few hundred years isn't too frequent.

[zac]

Very interesting. It also got me thinking, "Which book was it that has broken ladders being played out as examples?" So now I'm re-reading Lessons in the Fundamentals, which seems to get a re-read after my all too frequent breaks from the game. It's things like this that keep me interested and engaged with the game; I find re-reading parts of The Go Companion is good for that too