Bending back

    Keywords: Shape
[Diagram]

Persson-Schmidt

This is an amateur game (1995 Swedish Championship). The play W5 would never occur in pro play: at B6 or a can be considered compulsory. The hane play B6 is excellent shape and bends back White's position on the upper side: if we had next here the reasonable White b, Black c, White d, Black has advanced by ninety degrees in this focal area compared with W5 at B6.



James McCartney?: There's a black stone missing? White is moving first here, but by the stones on the board, it is black's turn.

(Sebastian:) Well they were amateurs. Maybe they didn't know any better. :o)

James McCartney?: Some pages jump right into examples without first defining the term being talked about. Is bending back just a hane or something more?

Charles Don't always expect a definition.

[Diagram]

White has been bent back

In this shape you are supposed to look at the white wall. There might be another black stone at the circle point, or the square point.



The white+circle stones were going in one direction (south), The white+square stones are now going in another (east).

The effect is that Black gets 270 degrees, White only 90 degrees of the outside influence here. This is a bad result for White (appalling is hardly strong enough to express how bad).



White's idea, as expressed by the wedge at W7, is to break up Black's framework. But this way of playing is profligate [1] with influence.

[Diagram]

Yamabe-Hashimoto

The same joseki in Yamabe Toshiro-Hashimoto Utaro 1963-03-30. W6 is tenuki to match B1 tenuki from the lower right. It does however cede influence.

[Diagram]

Yamabe-Hashimoto

Black builds up influence in the upper right, ending though in gote; so White can continue at W8. NB that Black a remains as a substantial endgame play.



In general tenuki plays can lose influence in this way, and this is to be taken into account even if the temporarily abandoned group has no problem surviving.

Charles Matthews


[Diagram]

HolIgor learns by mistakes

HolIgor: I've never played it before but B5 seemed too important. White replied with W6. B7 seemed like a good idea. W8 took me by surprise. I gave in with B9. Yet B7 was a good move.

This is a point when knowing joseki is necessary. At this point the joseki changes from peaceful to fighting variation. Consulting Yoshida one finds

[Diagram]

Yoshida recommends

Black then jumps out with a. Yoshida gives other variations as well. It is so easy to mess up in this situation. How can one risk this unprepared? Next time I will play this to see what kind of fight results from here.


[1]: Please clarify profligate --Dieter

Dictionary says 'recklessly extravagant'. You could say, spending money as if tomorrow will never come. Charles


This is a copy of the living page "Bending back" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2014 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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