Kikashi

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  Difficulty: Intermediate   Keywords: Tactics, Strategy, Go term

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Chinese: 先手利 (xian1 shou3 li4)
Japanese: 利かし (kikashi)
Korean: 강요 (gang-yo)

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Black 1 can be kikashi

Kikashi, a Japanese go term adopted into English, is a sente move or sequence that produces a certain additional effect. Because it has done its work, it can normally be freely abandoned unless it is part of a much larger chain or group. It is usually translated as forcing move or sequence.

A kikashi stone is a stone played with kikashi. In many cases, kikashi stones may be viewed lightly. Such a kikashi stone has done its work by evoking a response and are easy to throw away. In other words, kikashi stones often are disposable stones.

[Diagram]

Black 1 can be kikashi


There has been a lively discussion about kikashi on Sensei's Library, see e.g.

Other pages considered the relation with aji-keshi, sente and thank-you move.

Consensus yielded:

The main point is that kikashi are

  • sente
  • usually do not leave a choice of different answers
  • not to be criticised for bad aji keshi
  • do not require defensive plays afterwards, so are light not heavy.

Otherwise forcing plays can be a mistake.

Quotes from well-known authors

From Attack and Defense by James Davies and Ishida Akira: A forcing move may be defined as a sente move that brings its player some potential advantage without having to be followed up or defended.

From Strategic concepts of Go by Nagahara Yoshiaki and Richard Bozulich: A kikashi is a forcing move played to produce an effect. That is, a kikashi is a play which must be answered, usually in just one way, the exchange of the kikashi and the answer being useful in some way to the player of the kikashi. The terms kikashi and sente may seem to have the same meaning, but kikashi is applied to moves which are more or less incidental to the main flow of play. Once played, kikashi stones can typically be abandoned without any great loss.

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 Attack and Defense, incidentally: the only proviso is whether the outside significance creates more aji than the use of the forcing move dissipates.

Sakata, in the Sakata no Go series, vol. 5, How to Sacrifice Stones, p. 1, says this about kikashi:

Sente is certainly a condition of kikashi, but it is not the case that every play that is sente is also kikashi. If we compare the value of my play to the value of the opponent's response, only when my play does more work does it become kikashi. Accordingly, the value of kikashi, unlike that of plays in other situations, cannot be reckoned as so many points. On the one hand, the work done may be worth a mere fraction of a single point; on the other hand, a kikashi stone may later come to play a decisive role in winning or losing the game. In any event it is a subtle matter.

We professionals exercise a good deal of sensitivity in regard to kikashi. Often in game post mortems the question of whether a certain play is really kikashi or not becomes the subject of debate.[1]

-- Slightly polished translation by Bill Spight.

Kaya Just to mention one more thing regarding kikashi/sente. A move is not kikashi before it's answered, it requires the opponent to do so. But it might not be inmediate sente. When attempting to play this kikashi, the opponent could ignore to play a more pressing one, which you would answer, and when the opponent returns and responds it, it becomes kikashi. You can only determine a move was kikashi afterwards, not predictively.

Brian Chandler (translator): Beyond forcing moves: kikashi - a move which exploits an opponent's forced response to provide some gain.

Robert Jasiek in Joseki Volume 2 Strategy: An additional local move sequence is forcing if it must be answered, achieves a useful purpose and does not waste alternative good possibilities until time is ripe.

Antti Tormanen makes another stab at kikashi, in his [ext] first essay, as an insei.


See also


[1] Sakata was known for playing kikashi early. On the contrary, Takagawa played kikashi late, and sometimes not at all. Games between these two are quite interesting in that regard.


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