Tesuji: Elephant Jump
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 5:00 pm
I had planned to do a different topic for this week, but after working through my selection for a professional game for this week a few times, I've been struck by this shape that almost never occurs to me to play:
Since I almost never play it (because of the obvious weakness at A), my understanding of it is pretty minimal, but after looking at how it arises in professional play, here are some basic things (I think) I've learned about it.
First, even though it has the obvious weakness at A, the Elephant Jump is often very useful for creating thickness, even when the opponent hits that weak spot. For example, you can imagine a sequence like this: If Black can continue to make use of the marked stone, then this thickness is especially good. This is the core idea behind the joseki I examined in my previous study-post. Perhaps an even better example of this is in this Iyama Yuta game. Iyama makes the elephant jump with
and 
then from 
- 
sacrifices the one stone in order to build thickness. The aji from the stone continues to linger, however, as seen with 
.
Relatedly, this Elephant Jump is often played as a cap in a jumping fight. Something like this: A good example of this is in last week's game, when White played the cap of
.
To avoid this result, an opponent will often not want to play at this weak point. This especially seems to happen in certain joseki sequences like these: In these joseki sequences, it's notable that playing at the midpoint weakness in the elephant jump is wrong. In fact, in most examples of this that I found in (my limited review of) professional play, the opponent's response was to play somewhere other than this weakness. (Iyama's
in last week's game seems to be the exception, and prompted a bit of an exchange.) You can see this happen several times in the game I'm memorizing this week (notably at 
and ):
Now that I'm looking for it, I'm seeing this shape everywhere, but still wish I understood more. Can anyone add anything further?
First, even though it has the obvious weakness at A, the Elephant Jump is often very useful for creating thickness, even when the opponent hits that weak spot. For example, you can imagine a sequence like this: If Black can continue to make use of the marked stone, then this thickness is especially good. This is the core idea behind the joseki I examined in my previous study-post. Perhaps an even better example of this is in this Iyama Yuta game. Iyama makes the elephant jump with
and then from - sacrifices the one stone in order to build thickness. The aji from the stone continues to linger, however, as seen with .Relatedly, this Elephant Jump is often played as a cap in a jumping fight. Something like this: A good example of this is in last week's game, when White played the cap of
.To avoid this result, an opponent will often not want to play at this weak point. This especially seems to happen in certain joseki sequences like these: In these joseki sequences, it's notable that playing at the midpoint weakness in the elephant jump is wrong. In fact, in most examples of this that I found in (my limited review of) professional play, the opponent's response was to play somewhere other than this weakness. (Iyama's
in last week's game seems to be the exception, and prompted a bit of an exchange.) You can see this happen several times in the game I'm memorizing this week (notably at and ):Now that I'm looking for it, I'm seeing this shape everywhere, but still wish I understood more. Can anyone add anything further?
.