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Teaching 44 - One Thru Forty
Scartol: Your point is well taken. It appears now that, unless I want to compound my folly, I had best protect the upper region as best I can. Thus, B31.
Bill: Black's upper region is fine. B 31 does not threaten White's group, and is, at this point, small potatoes, merely saving one stone and adding a few points to Black's territory. Better to take sente. HolIgor: W32: White is not 100% alive in the top right corner but a rash attack on that group will favour white. So I take an oba. By the way I am convinced that double digit kyu players always lose too much because of small moves. Once they learn to see that the local loss is small and gote for the opponent their score on the board improves a lot. Scartol: I think you're right. Learning the difference between necessary and unnecessary small moves is one of my top priorities right now. (Can't say I'm succeeding too wildly so far.) B33: Trying to extend my moyo as much as possible. I thought about playing at a, but it felt like I was overreaching and could be cut off.
Bill: B 33 is a good play. :-) a is overextended and too low. Besides extending your moyo, B 33 puts pressure on the White group in the corner. As HolIgor points out, it has not formed life yet. HolIgor: W32 was a mistake. Correct way is to play urgent moves before big moves. I allowed to be forced. W34 seems to be the shortest way to life.
Bill: Life is not the only consideration. b or even c is better, no? Scartol B35: An attempt to reduce.. HolIgor: W36: First saving a stone, then I will decide what to do with the invader. Scartol B37: I feel like Martin Bishop in Cosmo's office in the movie "Sneakers".. Bill: B37: Good! Carry out your own threat. :-) HolIgor: I like to attack from far. Actually, I don't like moyos. Neither opponent's nor mine. Scartol B39: I wish I could feel that way. I like having a moyo, and I feel violated when my opponent invades. I need to lose that thought pattern..
Bill: B39: Refusing the invitation. Better hane at d. HolIgor: W40. I am cut off, so there is a need to survive. Generally, building moyo requires a skill in attack. This is my weak point, so I prefere to play small scale.
Scartol: B21: Defending the top. Maybe I need to be more proactive? HolIgor: This move was purely defensive, you connected your stones but the corner is open yet. HolIgor W22: Testing intensions. Scartol B23: 'Attach, hane' is how the saying goes, right? HolIgor: Correct, hane is a good move here, but black had a number of options to consider. HolIgor: B24: White wants to settle at in this corner. Black's top is so thick that attacking it is a difficult task. Making it even stronger is not a great loss. Scartol B25: I can't have you moving in on my upper moyo, now can I? HolIgor: W26. I continue with my plan of settling in this area. Naturally, I expect black to resist. Black makes profit and puts pressure on white stones. The profit here is not the main thing. It is more important to resist white's attempts to get life easily. Scartol B27: Sounds like you're recommending that I attack your invaders. Normally I would play at 'a', but in light of your comments I'll be more aggressive. Bill: B 27 at a would be very bad. B 27, although more aggressive, strengthens White while leaving Black weak. The following is better.
B 1 - 5 forces White into a low posture while buiding a wall that works with Black's stones on the top. Saving the marked stone is small at this point. HolIgor: W28. Naturally I pull out the stone. Interesting, I expected the joseki shown by Bill. But a deviation from it creates a situation that I've never played. HolIgor: I am not sure, but I've seen it played by strong IGS players so many times that I thought it was. Scartol B29: I don't expect to win any nominations for "Most Aggressive Move of 2002", but I've been told I'm weak at the top, so I figure I should reinforce. Maybe I can muscle my way into the center a bit here. The more I look at it, the stupider it looks, but I'm a big fan of the "no take back" rule.. Bill: B 29 is a thought, but a or b is better. :-) B 29 does not protect the cut at b. HolIgor: W30. Compare now this situation with what was suggested by Bill. White stones are higher, black did not get the wall.
HolIgor: I don't play with BlueWyvern, so I'll take this. HolIgor: Black 1: It is agaist the tradition to play the first move in the upper right corner. On the real goban you have to stab under your opponent's heart. So, looking from your side this turns out to the the upper right corner. Looking from my side it is the lower left corner since my heart is somewhere closer to that region. (Scartol: Yes, you're right. I should have known better.) HolIgor: White 2: This is what I play recently when the opponent plays a komoku. Recently means after I've read Kawabata's "Meijin". This is the move that Honinbo Shusai played against Kitani Minoru. I've analyzed some of my games with Kombilo and was surprised to find out that these are among the most popular two first moves in my games, though in most cases black play hoshi against me. I do quite well with this komoku, so I don't see any reason to deviate. Scartol: Black 3: I like to have one komoku and one hoshi in my opening; I'm trying to develop my strategies for defending them each. HolIgor: White 4: While white 2 was for territory, white 4 is for speed and influence. Actually, I did not decide yet which I want in that corner. Normally when you play hoshi, both options are open for some time. So far I did not actually pay attention to what black did. I marked my presence in two corners. A multipurpose fast hoshi in one and more territorial komoku in another. Scartol: Black 5: Trying to set up a right-side base. HolIgor: Black 5: This move creates a one sided formation that is called low Chinese fuseki. If you read through these pages you'll see that people hate to play white against Chinese fuseki (low or high). The move, therefore, is very good. On the other hand you've tricked me playing your first move as komoku and your second move as hoshi. If I knew that you'll be playing Chinese I'd choose hoshi as my move in the lower right corner. But your unusual sequence put me off guard. The purpose for that is my way to cope with Chinese fuseki, which works better with two white hoshi. HolIgor: White 6: Let's try to follow the same path with komoku in the lower left corner. The lower side is the most important area now, because white wants to stop black's future propagation from the lower right corner. But what move on the lower side to choose? People play 'a', 'b', 'c' or 6. 6 is very mild far approach, neither strongly confinig the opponent nor building a stronghold. Scartol: Black 7: Part of me says I should respond to your approach on the bottom, but the stronger part says I should stake a claim on the top. I'd hate for you to strike there, and thereby proclaim 2/3 of the board as your sphere of influence. JamesA: Sorry, I just wanted to make one comment. Black 7 should definitely be played one to the left of where it is. Black and white each have a star point stone on the top. If black is going to play around the middle of these stones he should play exactly in the middle. As it stands, white could play two spaces to the left of 7 and black will have gained no advantage from playing first at the top. Holigor: Everybody is wecome to make comments. It is a teaching game. I agree with the above comment. It is useful to remember. I understand that my opponent wanted to play tighter to his corner. But one has to try to make moves with multiple purposes. HolIgor: White 8: This is the plan of my method of playing against the one-sided formations (as expained on IGS 5k Against Low Chinese). If while plays on the right then black's move in this region creates a moyo that is too large. Scartol: B9: Well then, do I really have a choice but to invade here? HolIgor: W10: This move gives some support to the hoshi stone at the top. The idea of the early tengen was to create some support to the invasion on the right while making the moves on the left more urgent for the opponent.
Scartol: So was it premature (or foolish) to invade? B11: I figure sneaking under and making the top wall for a base are miai. HolIgor: B11 was very unexpected. There is an open space in the direction to the bottom and an extention there was expected. It would establish some base aiming at the lower right corner at the same time. B11 does not reach that objective and at the same time it does not attack white's stones significantly. It can be ignored. Holigor: W12: Till the black group is settled white can play on the right. This move puts a mild pressure on the black group and at the same time expands from the lower corner. Bill: Mild? Gee, HolIgor, I'd like to see severe! ;-) W 4 would have been mild. JamesA: As a slightly tangential point, I do like your idea of playing tengen against the Chinese, HolIgor. I think I'll try it in some of my games. Hurrah for Sensei's Library! Scartol: I worry that if I make large moves like the extension toward the bottom (for B11), I will overextend myself. B13: Trying to survive. HolIgor: Getting thick at the bottom and making a shimari simultaneously. Scartol: B15: An attempt to threaten and expand. Gorobei: I'm just a novice, but B15 seems to help white solidify the upper-left, while not really threatening much: the left black group is still in peril and saving it will let white make good space in lower-left/center. HolIgor: It is decided now. White has to go for the territory in the corner. Scartol: B17: Protecting my influence at the top. HolIgor: W18: I don't wan't to leave too much aji in the corner Bill: White already has a commanding lead, mainly the result of B 11, 13, and 17. All three plays are passive, and relatively small. Early plays on the second line are rarely good, except in infighting, which has not occurred. In the opening too much concern for survival and protection lets the opponent take an early lead, making for an uphill battle. Better to be enterprising. If you do err, overplays are better than underplays. ;-)
Shifting a few stones slightly shows a more reasonable development for Black. You can see the difference. :-)
W 18: Help! It's catching! ;-) How about this?
Or this?
Scartol: B19: Is it too early to start settling this group? I also have an ulterior motive in mind.. Of course, now that I've set it down and look at the board, it strikes me as another very passive move..
Bill: B 19 is a good play. The bottom right is almost territory, and there is potential for expansion. :-) HolIgor: W20. This is the remaining invasion point. Bill: "Defending" is almost a dead giveaway. :-) Normally B 21 is OK, but here Black is overconcentrated on the top side. You need to put pressure on the W 20 stone.
This is a common pattern. Because of the marked Black stone, White cannot make an ideal extension. White is a bit overconcentrated, but so is Black, and Black still has a weakness at a.
Here is a case where a play on the second line is OK. :-)
The tsuke osae? (attach and press) is a good attack here. Again Black avoids overconcentration and does not give White a good base. If White connects at 7 instead of 6, Black cuts at 6. This is a copy of the living page "Teaching 44 - One Thru Forty" at Sensei's Library. (C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0. |