Quick Questions

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Is it Possible to Stop Blue?

Playing red, I run into positions such as the one below frequently (there are other stones on the board, but I'm trying to simplify for my own understanding).

1. Is blue's stone 1 already connected to the right edge before I played 2?
2. Is this because 1 is a fifth row template?
3. If blue 1 is not "unstoppable", assuming red 2 is a mistake if the goal is to prevent blue from connecting to the right, what is the correct approach?

Answer: Instead of k7, you should play j8, creating a bottleneck. The further from the edge you do this, the better it generally is.