Touching way too many times

    Keywords: Strategy

Players that are usually around 15kyu or up tend to touch the opponent's stones every time. This has got to stop.

This even plagues the better sort of double digit kyu (like me thanatos13) who constantly defend by touching, leaving way more aji than necessary.

There are too many moves where attach is very nice and people think, well, let's attach all the time.

Like kicking too much

[Diagram]

tapir: Somewhere there is a page about bad habits from joseki. Because attaching is indeed joseki if black has a pincer in place already.

Phelan: JosekiAsASourceOfBadHabits


This is a scenario where two DDK's (I made this up on the spot) does a lot of touching. Note that these are very horrible plays to demonstrate the horrible idea of touching all the time. The lowness of the white group and the many cutting points of the black group (marked with circles) shows the mistake of always touching the opponent.

[Diagram]

[Diagram]

Malcolm: Not all of the plays here are horrible. Actually it's a rather incoherent sequence.

W1 is an invasion, so B2, a contact play, goes against the principle Attack From A Distance. A pincer at a would be better. W3 is a natural play and so is B4. W5 is bad, as it lets Black save B2 which can be captured. It would be better at W7. B6 is a mistake as it doesn't attack White well and leaves a cutting point as bad aji. It would be better at W7. W7 is fine.

B8 is very bad as it lets White rip up Black's shape by playing at Black 10. This would make a ripped tobi. For more info, see L'ame du go. W9 is also a bad move as it misses the chance to play at Black 10. Finally, Black 10 is OK!

My feeling is that contact plays are fine. There are lots in pro games, after all! What one has to look out for is not to follow the opponent round the board.


This is a copy of the living page "Touching way too many times" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2012 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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