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Kikashi
Path: GoodPlay · Prev: Kiai · Next: Miai Path: ForcingAndInitiative · Prev: Gote · Next: ThankYouMove
Difficulty: Beginner
Keywords: EndGame, Tactics, Go term
A kikashi is a sente move that produces a certain effect and can then be abandoned without any great loss. It is usually translated as forcing move. There has been a lively kikashi sente discussion which showed the necessity to quote from literature how we should understand the concept of kikashi. See also forcing move misunderstandings. Quotes from well-known authorsFrom Attack and defense by James Davies and Ishida Akira.: A forcing move may be defined as a sente move that brings its player some potential advantage without having to be followed up or defended. From Strategic concepts of Go by Nagahara Yoshiaki and Richard Bozulich: A kikashi is a forcing move played to produce an effect. That is, a kikashi is a play which must be answered, usually in just one way, the exchange of the kikashi and the answer being useful in some way to the player of the kikashi. The terms kikashi and sente may seem to have the same meaning, but kikashi is applied to moves which are more or less incidental to the main flow of play. Once played, kikashi stones can typically be abandoned without any great loss. Rob van Zeijst in his column The magic of Go: For an amateur, it is often hard to determine whether a move is a kikashi or a waste of potential. The average player will decide that a move is a kikashi if it is answered, as this will indicate that he has kept sente (initiative). There is no simple description for a kikashi. If in doubt, follow this rule of the thumb: A kikashi has outside significance while the answer to it usually has no or little value. This appears to mirror the idea given about kikashi in Attack and Defense, incidentally: the only proviso is whether the outside significance creates more aji than the use of the forcing move dissipates. Part of the discussion was about the Linguistic meaning of kikashi. The other part considered the relation with aji-keshi, sente and thank-you move. Consensus yielded: The main point is that kikashi are sente and
Otherwise forcing plays can be a mistake. Examples
From the same diagram, we see that White can also peep at Black's marked tiger shape. This move is sente : it also forces the opponent to answer, but it has a local achievement too.
Suppose White is ahead in territory but Black has more influence. With Contributions by:
Path: GoodPlay · Prev: Kiai · Next: Miai Path: ForcingAndInitiative · Prev: Gote · Next: ThankYouMove This is a copy of the living page "Kikashi" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |