In this section we'll look at some alternatives to the climbing silver or gold. Some of these are pretty good, but in my opinion not as clear and easy as the climbing gold. They are however instructive, and it's interesting to see how white can make a fight against these dangerous attacks.

Play through the analysis by clicking on "Java viewer" or get diagrams by clicking on links.

Second most often recommended attack at this handicap is the knight attack. It aims at a very quick knockout, before white can coordinate his forces. The main line runs like this: (Java viewer) 1...S6b 2 P1f P5d (2...G7b, 2...G3b, or 2...K4b is probably better) 3 P1e S2b (3...G3b is probably better) 4 R1h S5c 5 P1d Px1d 6 Rx1d P*1c 7 R1f G3b 8 N1g (or 8 P9f G7b 9 P9e G8b 10 N1g, which is similar) P2d (else 9 N2e and 10 Nx1c+ wins rather easily) 9 P*1d! G2c 10 Px1c+ Gx1c 11 N2e! Px2e 12 R8f (This shows why P7f was omitted) G7b 13 Lx1c+ Sx1c 14 R1f P*1d 15 G*2c (a diagram). Black has traded lance and knight for a gold, a slight loss, but his threats give him a big advantage. But there are some problems with this system. First of all, white can play 3...G3b, and if play follows the above line, 7...G2b will spoil the above plan. Perhaps better yet, white can omit ...P5d and ...S5c in favor of ...G7b and ...K4b, so that black has no double attack on move 12 in the above line. Finally, white can play Nada-style, for example (Java viewer) 1...K4b 2 P1f K3b 3 P1e S2b 4 R1h S6b 5 P1d Px1d 6 Rx1d P*1c 7 R1f (7 R1h intending P3f and N3g is better) G4b 8 N1g P2d 9 P*1d Px1d 10 Rx1d S1c 11 R1f P*1d

and white is okay because he can answer 12 P*1b by K2b or 12 P2f by K2c, with no easy win for black.

The knight attack can also be played with an early P7f. The main line runs (Java viewer) 1...S6b 2 P7f P5d (normal, but I consider 2...G7b (Iida) or 2...K4b (Nada) to be more accurate due to this variation) 3 P1f S5c 4 P1e S2b 5 R1h G3b 6 P1d Px1d 7 Rx1d P*1c 8 R1f K5b (to guard the 6c pawn. 8...K4b avoids the following line, but allows the same type of attack as in the above 2 P1f attack) 9 N1g P2d (else N2e and Nx1c+) 10 P2f G2c 11 P2e Px2e 12 Nx2e P1d (12...P2d 13 Nx1c+ is good for black) 13 P*1c! Nx1c 14 P*2d! Gx2d 15 Nx1c+ Sx1c 16 Bx3c+ (a diagram) with a huge advantage (Pieter Stouten (amateur) vs. Aono Teruichi (Pro)). This is probably why Nada once said that after 2...P5d "Black can win easily". White can avoid all this if he omits ...P5d and ...S5c in favor of ...G7b (guarding 6c) and ...K4b (guarding 3c). Iida's setup, with an early ...G65b and ...S8b, also avoids this attack. Another defense is 2...G3b 3 P1f S2b 4 P1e P2d, but then the attack 5 P2f followed by S3h-2g-3f is quite strong.

Next page