The Ring of Water - Chris Bradford [63]
‘Now the battle really begins.’
39
CONSTELLATIONS
White opened with an invasion into Black’s right-hand territory. Jack tried to block it with his next stone, but a masterful play by daimyo Sanada simultaneously threatened the capture of a Black group and the future freedom of the three key White stones.
Jack retaliated, attempting to stop White building a lifeline and saving them. But in spite of his best efforts, he found his defences crumbling under the daimyo’s onslaught. He was being attacked from all quarters and his battle strategy began to unravel. Focusing on surrounding the three White stones and killing them, Jack missed daimyo Sanada’s drive across the upper half of the board. Before he’d even realized it, a group of four Blacks had been surrounded and taken prisoner.
Jack despaired. He’d lost virtually all influence in the upper territory. How could he ever hope to win now?
‘Can I call a recess?’ he asked.
‘By all means. I’m enjoying this game immensely,’ replied daimyo Sanada, taking the opportunity to talk with Kanesuke.
Jack paced the courtyard, slowing as he passed Ronin and Hana.
‘Don’t worry,’ whispered Ronin, with as much conviction as he could muster. ‘It’s possible to suffer losses in one area, but still fight back and win.’
‘How can I?’ replied Jack. ‘He’s surrounding all my groups.’
‘You have to see the patterns in his strategy! Predict his movements. View the whole board –’
‘Time!’ called Kanesuke, noticing the exchange.
Returning to his seat, Jack stared bleakly at the board. He couldn’t see any ‘patterns’, only individual conflicts. The configuration of Black and White was almost meaningless on a large scale and there appeared no obvious way to interpret a strategy from it.
‘If he takes much longer, we’ll be playing by starlight!’ remarked Kanesuke sarcastically.
Constellations!
Jack was hit with a flash of inspiration. As a ship’s pilot, his father had taught him how to navigate by the stars. At first, there’d been so many constellations he’d been unable to interpret the sky at all. His father, though, had shown him how to see the small in the large and the large in the small. Gradually, Jack had learnt to recognize key star clusters and then, all of a sudden, he was able to read the heavens at a single glance and steer a safe course across the featureless ocean.
If he viewed the White stones as stars and his Black as the night sky, he could picture the whole battle in his head. Almost at once patterns started to emerge, and a strategy formed, revealing a glimmer of hope that he could navigate his way to victory.
He now saw that the daimyo’s plan was to sacrifice his three White stones and in the process destroy Black’s prospective territory at the bottom of the board. Immediately Jack made a play for this area. Two groups formed – White and Black – and there was a race to capture one another. Jack got there first, seizing four prisoners and securing the zone.
The daimyo, his nostrils flaring, snatched up a White stone and retaliated with an invasion for the mid-left. But now he could see the game in its entirety Jack’s instincts told him to ignore this. Instead he placed a stone in the centre of the board with a loud clack.
‘No!’ exclaimed Ronin at such a reckless move. But it was too late. The stone had been placed.
Daimyo Sanada grinned. The gaijin had made a fatal error!
Yet Jack’s intuition told him that this was the right strategy. He kept deploying stones in seemingly unorthodox positions and the daimyo’s initial gloating turned to worried confusion. As the battle intensified, daimyo Sanada started to run his fingers noisily through his bowl of counters. Jack, gathering from Ronin’s expression that this was inappropriate etiquette, knew he’d thrown the daimyo off his game.
Frowning deeply, daimyo Sanada hesitated in all his responses. But his mood lightened once he managed to create a group with two ‘eyes’. He then positively