Variations of Our Solution (IIIa)

No Early Kikashi

VAR (.1) (.1)

The effect of White's gote move in the hanezeki equals that of a Black reduction move (for the Capture Variation) in the upper right corner: Black will be one point better in the Capture Variation, but one point worse in the Semeai Variation.

The consequences are as follows:

• White will not play her gote move in the hanezeki in subvariations, where Black's score in the Capture Variation is already better than in the Semeai Variation. Black would gain by one point overall unnecessarily.
• In the other subvariations, playing White's gote move in the hanezeki "early" does not make sense, if Black has at least one reduction in the upper right corner (for the Capture Variation) at his disposal. He will compensate for the effect of White's gote move by simply playing one of his reduction moves less, and still get the same final scores as before.
• On the other hand, this implies that Black has to play his second kikashi in the hanezeki before reducing White's upper right corner (for the Capture Variation).
• In all the remaining subvariations (in which Black must not, or is unable to, play any reduction in the upper right), Black is forced to play his kikashi in the hanezeki "early". He has to play it latest, when all gote moves outside the Main Semeai area - that are advantageous for him - have gone.

During the course of our investigations, especially while creating the diagrams, we were very lazy with the abovementioned effect of White's gote move in the hanezeki.
This made it necessary to adjust many of the diagrams that contain Black's territory-destructive moves in the upper right corner. We ask for your kind understanding.