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Do Not Use Thickness To Make Territory
Path: GoProverbs · Prev: PlayAwayFromThickness · Next: MakeTerritoryWhileAttacking
Difficulty: Beginner
Keywords: Proverb
This is one aspect of the proverb play away from thickness.
The advice is not to play short extensions such as Black 2 here, which gains only a handful of points. Black's position to the right is very thick - it can only give its full strategic value if Black uses it in a dynamic, fighting plan.
Black should play from the other side, with Black 2 here. Then White 3 looks lke a mistake: Black 4 to attack is good. Perhaps White should play 3 at 4, staying away from thickness herself. In any case the territory on the upper side is important mostly as a base for White's group, not for the few points it represents.
The fundamental ideas here for Black's use of thickness are thickness should be used for fighting and Black will take profit elsewhere, in this case in the left corner.
Another useful way to analyse is to say that Black already has some points such as the circled ones because of his outside strength here. A black play at a is overconcentrated because it is only claiming points to which Black already has a right. Of course it is acceptable to make territory with thickness if
What one should not do is to make small, unambitious territories based on thick positions early in the game. Path: GoProverbs · Prev: PlayAwayFromThickness · Next: MakeTerritoryWhileAttacking This is a copy of the living page "Do Not Use Thickness To Make Territory" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |