The Monkey Jump

Last night, while playing a game in which the battle was very close, I played the monkey jump for the first time. Now, not only was it a deep intrusion into my opponent's territory, on the next play I was able to force a connection with an isolated group of three stones. And what did that do? It forced a capturing race with about 5 free liberties on both sides that would result in my capturing enough stones to change the course of the game.

So what happened? Well, what seems to happen at times on the internet servers with new players who are not yet ranked: my opponent simpley ran away, cravenly seeking to deny me my rightful victory. It's only a small thing, really. It's funny, while the internet brings communities of game players together in a way that they cannot accomplish in the real world, the virtuality of it allows people to game the system in just such a manner (among others).

The beautiful thing was (a) seeing that the monkey jump was possible, and (b) forcing a game-changing capture. Man, that was sweet. I really, really like this game.