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Lines of Stones [#1718]

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75.53.165.213: Lines of Stones (2009-01-19 17:03) [#5678]

Please delete this'

Sorry

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HermanHiddema: ((no subject)) (2009-01-19 17:10) [#5679]
[Diagram]
something like this  

If I read your post correctly, you mean something like this

[Diagram]
pushing  

In general, B1-B3-B5-etc is not a good idea, because black is pushing from behind. If you keep it up like that, white is constantly ahead of you, and may chose to bend around (hane) on the front of your stones (eg: W6 at a instead).

[Diagram]
jumping  

Usually, something like B1 is better, jumping ahead. Now W2 and W4 are pushing from behind, and maybe black will hane in front.

[Diagram]
jump, cut  

The risk of B1, however, is that white will cut like this. Whether this is possible depends on the surroundings (eg: is the edge of the board nearby?)

[Diagram]
knight's move  

If you think that the cut is too dangerous, instead of the first jump, you can play this knight's move jump of B1. Now W2-B3 might follow. This is better than pushing from behind.

[Diagram]
knight's move  

Even with the knight's move, white can still cut. But this cut is much weaker than the previous one. In the previous cut diagram, B1 and B3 and B-B were separated in three groups. Here B1 and B3 are connected, so black only has two groups to worry about (B1-B3 and B-B).

If even this cut is too much for your position, then you are truly in a weak situation, and perhaps there is nothing for it but to push from behind (sometimes bad moves are your only option).

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AndyPierce: few more comments (2009-01-20 04:39) [#5680]

It is useful to know how much pushing from behind you need to do.

[Diagram]
push once  

W4 is a Hane at the Head of Two Stones and is severe. If black is weak in this area, he will have difficulty answering due to black+circle being short of liberties.

[Diagram]
push twice  

Now there's an extra liberty for black+circle. This gives black many more options, including the possibility of a ladder starting with B9, and several other potentially useful forcing moves. Often, this level of pushing is sufficient to give black a variety of playable continuations, including the option to consider the black+circle-B1-B3 stones light and sacrifice them if white is locally strong.

[Diagram]
push three times  

Now black's connection is locally secure, because W10 can be captured in a net, starting with a and then b. In general, this is overkill, and black will have given up too much to the line of white stones underneath. By adding a 4th stone to black+circle, all these black stones become heavy and start to restrict black's options.

[Diagram]
don't do this  

More fundamentally, if black doesn't want to get into this kind of mess, he shouldn't attach to the white stone like this.

[Diagram]
shoulder hit  

The shoulder hit of B1 is very often better for black. Now if white continues locally at either a or b, it is white that is pushing from behind, rather than black.

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satyreyes: ((no subject)) (2009-03-18 04:45) [#5856]

This is a fantastic discussion. It seems to me it should be incorporated into PushingFromBehind, which at the moment is much less comprehensive.

 
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