Goose Tesuji is a term coined by Clossius (Shawn Ray), one of my teachers. It often results from filling dame, but it can actually be any weakness, especially near the end of the game.
In a recent NAOL game, with a long time Go Congress opponent, I totally missed a move that would have resulted in the capture of 11 stones minimally. It would have resulted in an even larger loss if my opponent had failed to step back, as necessary.
Take the time to see if you can find the first move for black in this board position.White had just passed, so it is black's turn.
You can check your answer by looking at the these two variations in the game record.
Click on the link below to find the above mentioned variations. Feel free to leave comments and variations of your own for both players while you are there. NAOL Game
I consider myself lucky to have not needed this goose in order to win this game. However, it would have been nice to have at least seen it. My intuition was drawing me to the area. I wanted to make something work, but I couldn't. I saw the last remaining dame, which threatened a capture, but the threat was obvious and easily protected against. My opponent made the proper response, and we moved on to scoring.
I failed to see that the proper move was from the inside rather than the outside. I hope to be able to see such problems in the future. With that in mind, I headed over to Tsumego Dragon, and loaded up every Vital Wedge problem available to me. There are 61 of them, and they range in difficulty from Level 0 to Level 3.
I did all 61 problems and only missed about four or five of them on the first try.
If you are interested in how the term Goose Tesuji came to be, you might enjoy this video: The Story of the Goose Tesuji
Now for the report of my week of Go Activities:
Last week was a moderately active week for go activities. I put in over 17 hours. I did manage to get in a bit of time on my Internet Go School Spaced Repetition problems. I missed one day and am down to 12 vacation days. I have to be more vigilant.