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missing pincer
    Keywords: Joseki

[Diagram]
Diag.: No comment?



Books on joseki usually make no reference at all to the pincer Black 1.

One theory is that White can play tenuki here and not suffer too much damage. Therefore it is better to pincer on the fourth line.

[Diagram]
Diag.: Magic Sword tenuki



Certainly if Black later adds the circle-marked stones in, the square-marked pincer stone belongs on the fourth line as shown.


DaveSigaty: Not only the marked stone below but b as well is missing from the dictionaries. One possible explanation is covered on high vs low pincer. The play a is the only low pincer commonly used against the one-space high approach move.

[Diagram]
Diag.: More than one missing pincer

Searching the GoGoD CD with an otherwise empty quadrant returns 13 games with this shape. Out of the 13, four are actual pincers played at the marked stone. All four are cases where Black already has a stone at one or the other of the points marked c. The other nine games are all cases where White plays the high approach with the marked black stone already on the board. We can reasonably say that the two-space low pincer does not exist in professional play on a "stand alone" basis.



This is a copy of the living page "missing pincer" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.