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AB[rh][qh][ph][oh][nh][ob][nb][nc][od][pe][of][ng][mg][mf][me][md][rg][mc]
AW[pb][pc][oc][nd][qd][rf]

C[Pro Pair Go Tsumego 1

Michael Redmond 9P is graciously providing all E-Journal readers with a set of tsumego problems featured at the 2016 pro pair go tournament.  Of course, these problems are quite tough, but nevertheless entertaining to everyone, especially because Michael will later provide each solution.

In this tsumego contest, each pair has up to 10 minutes to answer each problem, but only the first 5 pairs can answer.  The race to answer first makes these problems highly challenging.  After signalling having an answer, a pair must play each move within 5 seconds.  The pair team plays Black's moves, while the composer plays White's, which allows the composers to show their favorite variation for White.

Michael gives this interesting background for this tsumego from Ohashi Hirofumi 6P:

"This problem is misleading, in that Black's first and 3rd moves are relatively easy to find, while White 4 is counter-intuitive.  Ohashi tells me that he saw surprise and maybe shock in the top Chinese pairs faces when he played move 4, but Ke Jie quickly recovered, flickering his fingers in a burst of concentration, and was in time to give the correct answer."]
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