Honte

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  Difficulty: Advanced   Keywords: Go term

Chinese: 本手 (bĕn shŏu)
Japanese: 本手 (honte)
Korean: 본수

Honte is a Japanese go term adopted by English. A move which is honte ('the proper move') is one that is played to reduce the amount of aji in one's position. If one plays honte, one accepts that one gets less points than one would otherwise get, or even that one has gote rather than sente, getting in return a solid position with little bad aji, thus freeing one's hands in the future.

Other word for honte - kyuusyo (after CM of KGS) - MK

Bob Myers: No, I don't think honte and kyuusho are equivalent. Honte, as described above, is used to describe a move which superficially appears slow but is actually very solid, usually in the context of the opening. Kyuusho, on the other hand, simply refers to the vital point of a shape, for either attack or defense.

Bob McGuigan: The kanji 本 for hon in honte 本手 is the same as in hon 本 "book" or nihon 日本 "Japan" and its meaning in this case is "real", "genuine", or "true" as in honmono 本物 "the real thing". So honte would be a move which is real or straight-forward, as opposed to tricky or flashy. Maybe "sober" is a good attribute of a honte. I guess "honest" is OK as a translation, but it has always seemed to me to be a little strange, as if someone picked an ordinary English word that looked the most like "honte".

Bill: But calling a play "too honest" is a mild criticism. My impression is that such plays are always honte. Still, I think you are right, Bob, "honest" is not such a good translation.

Richard Cant: The translation of Kageyama's book "Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go" uses "the proper move" as the translation of "Honte".

RussellKhan: In Sakata Eio's "Tesuji and Anti-Suji of Go" it gets translated as "the real move". That's actually what brought me to this particular page -and I should thank you all, I think I understand the term much better now.


[Diagram]

White to move

dnerra: Here is an example. Where do you think would White move next?

Attack at a or b?

Take a large move at c or d?

No, the four white stones in the bottom right need attention! So maybe e or f?

Well, Takemiya Masaki didn't choose any of the above . . .

[Diagram]

Move 16

. . . but instead played here (in a 1992 Judan [ext] game against Kobayashi Koichi.)



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