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Don't Attach When Attacking
Difficulty: Beginner
Keywords: MiddleGame, Strategy, Proverb
"Don't Attach When Attacking" tells you not to touch the stones which you are trying to attack.
In the case where there are no other stones around, if White wants to attack the black stone, attaching to it (playing tsuke) will prompt Black to extend to a, or to play hane at b.
In both these cases, the black stones will be stronger after the attack than before, whereas White will be weakened. The natural way to attack a stone is from afar. The circled point is as close as White should ever go, and sometimes that is too close already. When attacking, all you are trying to do is to limit the opponent's possible movements. In the case above, an approach from the circled stone already robs him of the possibility to extend on that side to create a base or an eye. Attacking with a view to kill is almost always wrong. Living is easy, killing is difficult. Always attack to gain something (influence, territory...) not to take something away from your opponent. If, after you have managed to gain what you wanted, you can kill the opponent, then by all means do so, but don't make it the prime objective. Also, take a look at RespondToAttachmentWithHane, RespondToAttachmentWithHaneDiscussion and CrosscutThenExtend. --MortenPahle (10kyu) --Sbaguz: I think this proverb is very, very important for beginners like me: we play in panic next to opponent's stones when we want to stop his invasions... and this way we lose more. --Phlegmatic: Sbaguz - Remember that this proverb applies to attacking, sometimes different considerations apply when defending against invasions, as discussed in the tsuke page. This is a copy of the living page "Don't Attach When Attacking" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |