Zagga/Road To Shodan Diary

April 16th 2005. -- Honte and the direction of play

A beginner Go player is baffled by the amount of concepts and proverbs that a game with so simple rules can have. The first games on a 19x19 board make one feel overwhelmed by the amount of possibilities and lack of even a faint idea of where to play next and why.

The first things one are usually taught are to occupy corners first, then sides, then ... well, that part is often left out for the player himself to learn.

The ideas of corners needing less stones to occupy than sides and center, and that one must use his stones as efficiently as possible, are one of the first concepts one learns when beginning Go.

When a player learns new concepts, he feels more and more secure about having some sort of a general idea of the game and his way of perceiving the board becomes less chaotic and more structured. At the same time his rank along with a deeper respect for the game develops.

In this diary I will discuss my way towards understanding Go with the ultimate goal of one day reaching shodan.

A brief introduction about myself: I'm 25 years old EGF 11 kyu (also 11 kyu at KGS for now) player from Helsinki, Finland.

I started playing go seriously in autumn 2003 but had a long 8 month brake because of my job starting in summer 2004.

I believe in conceptual thinking in Go and try to learn in terms of concepts. As I discover something new I will discuss it in this diary

So far I have learned about the existence of concepts such as direction of play and honte (these two being probably the most important) and it has gotten me as far as 11 kyu.

Recently I had a long losing streak which I corrected by emphasizing direction of play a bit more. With the help of my sensei Sentsu I now how at least some idea of where to play next during fuseki.

My next goal is to learn more about corner approaches: The difference between high and low approach, and about the difference between high and low shimari as an answer.

Approaching corners and answering corner approaches (choose shimari or pincer? High or low? Far or near? Or even tenuki?) seem to be a bit of a random game for me.

With these ideas I should be able to reach 9 kyu soon-ish. Then I will hopefully be able to figure out what skills I need to develop next.

For now, it's time to play and study.

My thoughts on the concepts of honte and direction of play:

I have often felt helpless against an opponent developing scary looking moyos early in the fuseki. While I have tried to play steady moves to settle my groups before moving on to another part of the board somehow the opponent always seems to manage to get a good head start.

If, on the other hand, I try to actively scatter my stones everywhere around the board I'm left with weak groups with which I will struggle to keep them alive while opponent creates the moyo again -- just this time not in fuseki but later in the game.

My most recent discovery is that my direction of play has been ... well there pretty much wasn't any. It's a good idea to play honte, but it does lead to some trouble if you play honte in the wrong direction. The proverbs such as play away from thickness and approach from the wider side are very useful in determining the direction of kakari and shimari.

A bit far-fetched example  

Suppose black wants to play shimari next (probably not the best idea in the world but nevermind), playing in the direction of b leaves black very one-sided. At a black plays away from thickness (the 3-5 stones) and ends up having a much bigger area of influence on the board.

As for approach moves, the proverb approach from the wider side gives a simple answer to question whether to approach 4 from the side of 1 or from the side of 6. The wider side is the side of 1.

Approaching 4 is better than approaching 2 because of play away from thickness.

Velobici: Black has made a shimari facing up the right hand side of the board. Black's stone in the top right is high. The right side if developable for Black. Playing there to develope the right side seems to be the correct direction of play. Either c or d should be good.

MarkusKoivisto?: The biggest point on the board at this point is c or d. After this point has been played, the second biggest point is e. If black plays here, he has a nice Double Wing Enclosure. Conventional wisdom has white playing here next prevent it.

This exact pattern has appeared only once in professional play, in a 1974 Oteai Game (Kimura Yoshio vs. Myashita Suzue), with white making the enclosure agains Black's Sanrensei. Black's next move was the approach at a.

With one line to the right, this pattern has appeared 13 times in professional play, with black playing at c followed by white e played most of the time.