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Automatic Invasion Of Komoku
On Fuseki Advice That Holigor Finds Useful, HolIgor wrote: If the opponent plays 3-5 or 4-5 in an empty corner take 3-4 point immediately. This advice by a pro that I've read somewhere made has a great impact on my results. Previously I use to be scared to reply with komoku, because it seemed to me that was what the opponent wanted. But waiting for further development did not pay out. As soon as I started to play komoku it turned out that the opponents do not actually know why did they play 3-5 or 4-5 moves. It does pay to at least do a little reading out. Me and a friend of mine who play often have learned to be very careful in our approaches to each others takamoku and mokuhazushi points. More often then not, in our games, 3-4 is a not the right answer and gets us into trouble. Consider the following diagrams. -BlueWyvern
If white mindlessly invades the 3-4 point the result is very bad. I once played a game with this opening as black and dominated the rest of the game. The problems are all because of white's haste to invade the 3-4 point. This position appears in The Direction of Play? by Takeo Kajiwara? 9-dan (albeit with a different move order). Of it he states, "White then has virtually nowhere to play that does not help Black. Black's twin salients radiating from 1 control the centre of the board because of thier high position. You must learn to appreciate that this is a desirable position." HolIgor: Interesting. So, I guess Kajiwara advocates a move in the upper left corner first: BlueWyvern: In case you are interested, the order of moves in the book gives Black 1 as is, White 2 at White 4, (Which he states as a horrible disregard for the direction of play), Black 3 at Black 5, White 4 at White 2, and Black 5 played as an approach at Black 3.
6 is not intended for immediate play, naturally. I consider black's 5 rather than komoku, because white cannot, practically, prevent such shimari, if black wants to build it in his first corner. That should be endured.
Another example from Kajiwara's book. If white mindlessly invades at 6 with 3-4, we are dealing with something known as The Theory of Opposing Komokus?. Once again, white's automatic invasion of the 3-4 point has gotten him into trouble. Black's combination extension and pincer give him the advantage on the upper side. A 3-dan in our local club always advices us mere mortals to leave stones like the 3-5 or 4-5 stones alone until the rest of the board is more settled and it is clearer which benefits can be had from the various approaches to these stones. In practice, that means that he will always play in an empty corner before playing 'underneath' a 3-5 or 4-5 stone, and even that he will approach the other corner before approaching the corner with the 3-5 or 4-5 stone. Another argument is based on e.g. the taisha having so many variations and pitfalls that you should wait a bit before commiting yourself to something which is difficult to control. HolIgor: That was my usual appoach till I've heard a hearsay (heresy :^) that some pro advised to take komoku point as soon as possible. I thought that it won't hurt much to try. I tried it in several games and so far I like it very much. And what about taisha? I think that some day or other I will have to play it in order not to give in somewhere. And it will be fun. What does it matter if I lose several times because of the difficult variations. I find it almost impossible to study those variations before I played them in a game. As soon as I misplay taisha once I will know where to look at and what was the difficulty. So far, nobody wants to play anything involved :(.
MortenPahle: This is an interesting subject: are there any differences in the way you should play serious games (to win) and other games (to learn/progress)? BlueWyvern: My main point here is that any advice advising players dogmatically to "always do x when y occurs" should be taken with a grain of salt. Actually as far as HolIgor's original advice, I'd agree that invading a 3-5 or 5-4 point is usualy the right choice, and people often have no idea why they played it. But I don't think it is always the case, and I would say that every move ESPECIALLY in the fuseki requires careful consideration of the whole board position. DaveSigaty: As described in different attitude to serious and learning games, I play serious games when I fool myself about what I am doing! As a result, when I am engaged in my normal learning games I almost always choose to enter at the 3-4 point against either 5-4 or 5-3 stones. The exception is when I think of a logical reason (based on the overall fuseki development) to choose something else. Since I normally challenge my opponents quickly when they choose 5-4 or 5-3, this usually is not the case. Similarly I normally choose to let my opponents form the Chinese Fuseki and then play against it. In other words I do not avoid the Chinese just because it gives me problems (which it often does :-), rather I seek the opportunity to practice against it. Only since I contributed to plays against low chinese opening have I been using what I wrote to avoid the Chinese (so far I am 2-0! :-). Yes it is true, I afflicted my opinion on my trusting SL colleagues without ever trying it out - for shame! Shortly I also want to try HolIgor's Tengen anti-chinese which I find interesting. I also have in the back of my mind that Bill's Manchurian Fuseki is whispering "Try me!" as well. These are very interesting ideas that will not find their way into a serious game - which is a great reason to avoid serious games! This is a copy of the living page "Automatic Invasion Of Komoku" at Sensei's Library. (C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0. |