“Yu Shao 2-dan actually responded!”
Next to Chang Yan, Hong Yuhao 8-dan stared at the screen, shocked. “Why would he take it on? Once the Demon Blade forms, it’s insanely dangerous, and—”
Just then, Chang Yan suddenly laughed out loud.
Hong Yuhao was stunned, immediately cutting off his own sentence. He turned to her in confusion. “Ms. Chang Yan, what’s so funny?”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Chang Yan shook her head with a smile. “I just suddenly thought of something hilarious.”
Then she frowned a little and added, “Why is it that no one ever wants to walk the Demon Blade path against me?”
Hong Yuhao looked baffled. “The Demon Blade’s just too complex. If you mess up, you can hurt yourself more than the opponent. Unless the other guy’s crazy strong and desperate, I wouldn’t touch the Demon Blade either.”
“Yu Shao’s already played so many matches in a row, and now he’s taking on the Demon Blade, forcing a head-on clash. Sure, the momentum is insane, but…”
He hadn’t said anything wrong, but demoralizing the audience wasn’t the best move right now.
“I actually think Yu Shao 2-dan will win this one,” Chang Yan said, smiling at the screen. “Not only win, but even get a good rest.”
Hong Yuhao’s eyes widened. He looked at her like she was insane. “How do you rest with a Demon Blade on the board?!”
“Remember the finals of the Hero’s Pride Cup?” Chang Yan asked. “Su Yiming 2-dan spent over an hour in long thought, sacrificed the dragon to seize the initiative, and pulled off a kill fight for the ages. It was basically live-action tesuji theory.”
Hong Yuhao looked even more bewildered. “The Demon Blade is like that too. If not every move, then almost every move is as tough as tesuji theory!”
In Go, tesuji theory refers to the study of large-scale, complex life-and-death positions. You need to study day and night just to uncover the solution.
Things like shapes and formations are considered “yin,” while the hidden tactics within the shapes are “yang.”
So developing the yang means discovering those hidden, effective techniques within a specific shape.
If a player can pull off a tesuji theory-level move in a real game, that alone is already a stunning achievement—enough to make every Go player in the world bow in admiration!
As for the Three Most Difficult Josekis—the Demon Blade, Great Avalanche, and Large Diagonal—even if not every move is tesuji-level, they come pretty d*mn close!
That’s why the Three Difficult Josekis strike fear into so many players.
“Yeah, saying the Demon Blade is all tesuji theory wouldn’t even be an exaggeration,” Chang Yan said softly, her voice tinged with emotion as she looked at the screen. “But if the Demon Blade truly doesn’t work...”
Pan Huayan jolted like he’d been electrocuted, not trusting his own ears as he looked toward Yu Shao.
“What do you mean?” Chang Yan just smiled lightly, shaking her head. “Just keep watching.”
At that moment, inside the Chinese team’s review room—
Everyone stared nervously at the TV screen, foreheads beaded with sweat. None of them had expected Yu Shao to actually engage the Demon Blade. His courage was simply terrifying!
He’d been playing for six days straight, and he still dared to throw himself into a kill fight with the Demon Blade? That was insane!
Go might not look physically demanding, but it requires immense mental calculation. And calculation is strength. In the midst of complicated midgame battles, there have even been players who literally coughed up blood on the board—those games are known as vomit-blood matches.
Forget Go—even if you had six straight days of math exams, each lasting seven or eight hours, how many people could survive that?
Just then, Su Yiming suddenly spoke. “This game won’t take much effort. Looks like he can finally get some rest.”
Everyone turned to look at the screen, confused. The board only had eight moves on it. They were totally baffled.
“Win what? It just started!”
It took Qin Lang a while before he finally blurted out, “And besides, it’s already turned into a Demon Blade!”
Su Yiming stared at the screen, memories dragging him back to that Promotion Tournament match. He said, “It’s exactly because it turned into the Demon Blade—that’s why he’ll win.”
At that, everyone exchanged blank stares.
“Do you hear yourself right now?” Le Haoqiang looked at him like he was crazy. “You’re saying he’ll win because it’s the Demon Blade?”
Su Yiming finally pulled his gaze away from the board. Eyes lowered, he stared at the current position in front of him and said quietly:
“It doesn’t actually work.”
With those words, the whole room fell silent.
Gu Chuan struggled to swallow. “What did you just say?!”
The others stared at Su Yiming like he’d lost his mind.
Su Yiming didn’t offer any further explanation. Instead, he reached into the Go bowl, pulled out some stones, and swiftly laid out the Demon Blade’s follow-up variations.
Suddenly, when Su Yiming placed a black stone on the board again, everyone froze.
“That move—pushing down to grab the corner?”
Though they didn’t understand at first, no one interrupted. They just watched him continue the sequence.
But after placing that one move, Su Yiming stopped. He didn’t continue laying out the rest.
Because if you play the push and capture the corner, the Demon Blade still technically exists.
But without the Hane at the corner... the Demon Blade falls apart.
Unlike the Three-Star Formation, which can still be playable even if weakened (since edge extensions aren’t terrible), misplaying the Demon Blade isn’t a small disadvantage—it’s a massive loss.
The Demon Blade. The Demon Blade. The Demon Blade.
This joseki had drained the lifeblood of countless Go players. So many had sat before their boards, unable to crack its secrets. So many had poured blood, sweat, and tears into their games, trying to master it.
And in the end—was it all just a dream?
Suddenly, Gu Chuan stared at the board like he’d realized something.
“Even if the Demon Blade doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean Yu Shao can figure it out!”
“He can,” Su Yiming said, turning back to the TV screen. “Because back in the Promotion Tournament—that’s how I lost.”
The room fell silent once again.
Everyone stared at the screen, watching as black and white stones continued to land, one after another—
On the screen, the game proceeded exactly as Su Yiming had shown.
Finally, it was Black’s move again.
A single black stone slowly landed on the board.
Column 5, Row 16—Push!
Someone suddenly shouted, unable to contain their excitement. “We won again!”
“Once the Demon Blade plays out and you gain this much of an advantage in the early middlegame—even if it were someone else, it’d be unclear. But Yu Shao? He’s definitely winning!”
“Seven wins in a row! That’s seven straight victories!”
“And more importantly—energy! He not only wins this one, but he even gets to rest and recover!”