![]() StartingPoints Paths Referenced by
|
Kikashi Sente Discussion
Path: ForcingAndInitiative · Prev: LossMakingThreats · Next: KikashiAndInfluence
Keywords: Strategy
There are some moves on the board that have to be answered by the opponent, otherwise a local position would crumble. These moves are called forcing moves or kikashi. Playing these moves usually gives some positional advantages to the forcing side, but a ko threat is lost as the result. I think losing a ko-threat is not really an issue. Deliberately losing flexibility is. Dieter It also often happens that playing a kikashi which does not gain enough profit is actually aji keshi.
White has to answer at Kikashi stones should be considered lightly in many cases and sacrificed if their defence makes the formation too heavy. Sometimes weaker players come up with a move which they consider kikashi, but which is actually a thank you move. This should be avoided. All of us, weak or strong have to be aware of kikashi being possible thank you moves. --Dieter
DieterVerhofstadt: Kikashi or forcing moves , are moves that are played in order to force the opponent to answer in a certain way. The kikashi stones don't achieve a local advantage, but are meant to serve later purposes. If the opponent answers in the expected way - submissively - and tries to capture them later, they are often sacrificed, as they have already served their purpose. Sente moves are moves that require an answer, if the opponent doesn't want to suffer a local defeat. The difference with kikashi moves, is that sente moves do achieve a local goal and that they should not be sacrificed if you don't want that local achievement go to waste. Charles Matthews The main point is that kikashi are sente and (a) aren't to be criticised for bad aji keshi and (b) don't require defensive plays afterwards, so are light not heavy. Otherwise forcing plays can be a mistake. Dieter seconds this phrasing by Charles. Some examples:
From the same diagram, we see that White can also peep at Black's marked TigerShape. 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 It may be useful to illustrate the difference between a local sente move, a kikashi and a probe. If we define kikashi in general by a move which forces an answer, then a local sente move and a probe are just different ends of the spectrum, so to speak. But it seems that a kikashi, in addition to 'forcing an answer' is also often used to describe a move which is ready to be sacrificed, which is played outside the normal line of play, answered and then left alone. As such, a kikashi is much more 'speculative' than a local sente move or a probe. Of course, the distinction between kikashi and thank you moves is another subject, and not always easy to make. In Strategic Concepts of Go, Nagahara defines kikashi as follows:
See also kikashi and influence. BillSpight: Just a linguistic note. From a linguist's or lexicographer's point of view, words typically have more than one meaning. I can identify three main senses of sente, for instance. This point of view is descriptive: how do people actually use the word? There is also a prescriptive point of view: How should people use the word? There is not always agreement on this, of course, or else people would use the word as they should. ;-) From a technical point of view, it is nice to make a clear distinction between synonyms, so that they do not overlap. One may then prescribe a meaning for a technical term that is narrower than common usage. In the case of sente and kikashi I think that there is plainly an overlap in common usage, rather than a clear distinction. (And this does not bother me. :-)) It is a question of nuance.
In this diagram I think that most Japanese go players would describe the plays,
However, they would later call the black stone at I'm not living in Japan, now. Maybe DaveSigaty would like to check my sense of usage. DaveSigaty: I can't clarify the actual usage. I would like to blame my Japanese ability but I suspect that also my general conversations about Go do not rise to the necessary heights. I think that the following is very interesting. It is from Brian Chandler's "Translator's Notes and Terminology" at the beginning of Beyond Forcing Moves:
In addition to the help with the meaning of kikashi, I also like this for the definition of thickness which is different from (and I think more subtle than) the way I have thought about it up to now. Very interesting. :-) Thanks, Dave. --Bill One good use for forcing moves: If you are playing a rengo and you are weaker than your partner, you can play a forcing move so that you don't have to respond to a hairy situation and possibly screw it up, and possibly you could end up denying your opponents' strong player the chance to move. -BlueWyvern Harpreet: I've been told (while playing aji-keshi) that I was playing sente moves that were not kikashi. That is they were forcing (in the sense that they required a response) but not useful. Kikashi means "useful move". Perhaps that isn't the formal definition but it does coincide with what is written above (specifically, the "cause to work" part). I learned this terminology distinction from a stronger, Japanese-speaking player. Charles I've added something about the distinction on the thank you move page. It would actually be helpful to have a non-alias 'forcing move' page to refer to that page and this one. Charles Matthews A very old joke from my club: a move is sente if you hope your opponent doesn't answer it ... There are no true forcing moves in go. But there are many moves that ought to be answered locally. Perhaps there is a possible tenuki graph, which oscillates:
and so on, up and down, through amateur kyu and dan grades, before you get some agreement, perhaps at strong amateur level, on which plays really are proper to call 'forcing'. Confused: Would this be an acceptable definition? Forcing Move: A move your opponent answers the way you hoped he would. Charles A move your opponent answers the way you thought he would, even though he knew you thought he would think he should and hoped he wouldn't. Perhaps 'confused' will apply to several of us shortly. Anyway, the fundamental point isn't whether you are going to get an answer - who knows? It's the distinction between a kikashi and a thank you move. Confused: I thought, the distinction was something like this:
I agree with everything, except that sente always gives an immediate benefit except for keeping the initiative. Okay, here I go:
The whole point is between brackets: (if the opponent answers). The kikashi is supposed to be local sente in pos 1 and to affect the global position more if unanswered, than your leaving pos 2. However, locally that sente move may incur a minor loss, but combined with the plan it gives an advantage. Pos 1 and pos 2 can be far away from each other or touch the same group (such as play kikashi before living). 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 James Davies's book, Attack and Defense, incidentally: the only proviso is whether the outside significance creates more aji than the use of the forcing move dissipates. Substantially stronger players than I could probably have long and bitter arguments over that... Content of this discussion has been the source for the pages kikashi and Kikashi / Discussion. Dieter Chess players have a technical term for kikashi: zwichenzug, in German literally "switching move". (See intermediate plays.) Bill: I thought it was, Zwischenzug, or in between move. It's sente, but I'm not sure it's kikashi. For instance:
Andrew Walkingshaw: Another subtlety is that a zwischenzug is by definition absolutely forcing (say, a check) in a way that a kikashi in Go isn't - as such, it's generally a part of an absolutely concrete piece of tactics. Kikashi aren't, generally; they're played for their strategic rather than tactical value. As such, the difference in motivation makes the link a bit tenuous, I feel. Charles Matthews In fact the major timing issue for playing kikashi is frequently the fact that they cannot be played in interleaved fashion with other fights. Imagine for example you have a kikashi related to a ladder than can arise: it is probably skilful to play it before the sequence leading to the ladder is launched, because it is less likely to be forcing once the ladder is in being. One case where you could equate kikashi and intermediate plays, I suppose, is in applying the proverb play kikashi before living. Before inevitably living in gote with a group, one plays as kikashi any useful and effective moves there are, which threaten to make life some simpler way. The point though in this case is that such plays might not be forcing at a later time, once you have made the group live. I frankly feel that we could wind up this discussion and instead have a page Forcing Move Misunderstandings, since just about all possible misconceptions of the kikashi concept have by now been posted. The reference above to a kikashi move being aji keshi if it doesn't get enough profit doesn't seem quite right to me. I always thought that a kikashi is aji keshi if making it takes away some possibility that you might want to play later (the aji that is erased). For example, Black might peep at a white one-space jump, forcing White to connect, thus losing the possibility of peeping on the other side.
Timing is also very important in kikashi. Take Black's peep at the tiger's mouth above as an example. If the white stones become strong enough to the left and right, White might not answer the peep. Path: ForcingAndInitiative · Prev: LossMakingThreats · Next: KikashiAndInfluence This is a copy of the living page "Kikashi Sente Discussion" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |