Direction of Play

    Keywords: Strategy

Chinese: 方向 (fang1 xiang4)
Japanese:
Korean:

From the book The Direction of Play by Kajiwara

From the Preface
I imagine the phrase "direction of play" will be new to many readers, so what does it mean?
Well, in go each stone, whether it stands alone or with others, is invested with a power of its own. Naturally, that power acts in a certain direction depending on how all the stones on the board interact. Accurately pinpointing this direction and finding the right move to match it means having a "sense of direction", and intuitive skill that is vital for real strength in the middle game.
Fuseki, joseki and tesuji are generally amenable to a more or less logical approach, but it is important to look beyond this to the inherent power that makes a stone so effective. This book is an attempt to analyse that power and the direction in which it acts. If you read it carefully I think I can safely say that you will become a much stronger go player.
Summer, 1970 Takeo Kajiwara

See /Discussion

Splitting Go thinking into 'direction of play' and 'shape' is one of those what/how distinctions like strategy/tactics. The typical situation in Go is of looking at various empty spaces on the board, and trying to decide which area is most important. That overall decision represents choice of direction of play, after which one has to select a particular point.

Of course many things come into the decision such as attack and defence, aji and so on.

The Kajiwara point of view is something like 'maximum harmony of direction of play with the influence or aji of your existing stones'.

Proverbs related to the direction of play


This is a copy of the living page "Direction of Play" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2005 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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