Can someone explain the purpose of the first ghost move? I know it is unignorable allows white to get forcing moves on the outside but how does it allow white to omit a direct answer to a14 "because of aji at a" (senseis library)

Also can anyone explain why white never tries to connect the ko at L18 until a lot later despite the fact that it was huge?

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Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back!

I'm not much stronger than you are, but let me try to explain the ko, so I can be corrected by my betters.

The ko that starts at B145 isn't so much about whether B can capture L7, as whether he can settle J9 and L3 by capturing L7. Complete victory for B would be to capture L7 without wasting any moves to defend J9 or L3. However, B ends up breaking off the ko and playing a move at J7; W could fill in the ko here, but instead he keeps playing to force B to defend L3, too. So the ko continues and eventually B gives in again, defending at M1.

Now W ignores the ko. Why? Because at this point, the ko is only about 10 meaningless stones that are cutting apart two settled groups. 10 stones are worth 20 points, but if you need to fight a ko to win a capture, it's only worth 1/3 the full value (because it takes so many moves to win a ko). Each ko-move here is worth something like 6 points. Before M1, each move was worth 6 points for the white stones plus more for the threat to capture one of the black groups that they were cutting apart. Both players think there are more valuable moves on the board, so they ignore this 6-point ko until W246.

No one ever replied to this. How does W68 work? Is the idea just that W can get out into the center easily now, so a15 becomes an endgame move?

My book on this game, Jowa's Three Brilliancies (I reject the silly translation "ghost moves"), has been pending in the S&S print queue for many months now and doesn't seem to be moving. Looks like the pirates have won.

Pro tem, part of the commentary there may help: "White 68. Actually, not everyone believes it is necessarily a brilliant move. It was Shuho who first stuck a “!!” label on the move – “a move that will resound through the ages” – because it adds various kinds of aji to existing aji and gets sente."

To answer the original question:

Black's initial hane is, in principle, a nice endgame move for a couple of points. White wouldn't want to answer at this stage, because defending the few points at the top left in gote is simply too small. But, white also cannot tenuki immediately - then the top left group would be robbed of two eyes, and would have to run for life. So probably, black assumed that white has to answer A14 in gote.

But, as the commentary after 68 and 70 says, white can play 'a' and 'b' in sente due to those two moves. Those two sente moves would give a lot of eye shape. Therefore, he can safely tenuki. Even if black would play B15, the group is still not in danger of dying.

(BTW, this might not be the complete truth - I'm only 1 dan.)

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My name is Gijs, from Utrecht, NL.

When in doubt, play the most aggressive move

Alright, let's talk about something really important.

I've been noticing people saying "whilst" a lot lately, both here on the boards and elsewhere on the internet. That's not a word in my idiolect of English (Southern American English, with a few Pittsburghisms thrown in), and I don't really remember encountering it until recently, except maybe in some archaic texts (I can't quite remember).

So who says whilst? Topazg did, so maybe it's a British thing? Who else?

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Occupy Babel!

Wikipedia says that whilst is considered archaic outside of the UK.

In Middle English a bunch of prepositions (amid, among, again) took on a pseudo-genitive declension among(st?) people who wanted to sound vaguely archaic and formal. In some cases the new word won out completely (against), whilst in other cases they coexisted. "While" was one of the victims.

Whilst sounds totally normal to me, as does while. Don't forget that a lot of people do speak English outside of America Justin .

I know, I know... but let me tell you a story. One of my friends just got back from the US. She told me that a lady heard her speaking and came up to her in the street, this was the gist of the conversation:

Lady: You talk funny, where're you from?
My friend: Australia, I'm here on a holiday.
Lady: Oh wow, your English is really good, you must've studied a lot, good job!

My friend said she was lost for words at this very friendly, well meaning, positive, but apparently ignorant person. I will concede that Australia does get forgotten fairly often .

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David

Go Game Guru: Learn Go | How to Get Better at Go | Go Game Shop | Go Boards | Baduk TV

Reminds me of Dr. Straw saying that he was bilingual--he spoke American and English. I'm just curious about where any given variant of English is employed.

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Occupy Babel!

She probably confused Australia and Austria. That happens a lot

But it's also a lot of fun. When abroad, I like to wear my "No Kangaroos in Austria!" t-shirt to confuse people, and it works surprisingly often, even with people who are otherwise quite smart