Karl Knechtel/ Old Style Observations

I liked Alex's summary of his PlayingStyle on his home page, so I will copy the format here. Actually I think my style is not very different from his... and I expect that further games between the two of us will continue to be exciting. :)

My strengths, as I see them:

• Shape
• Life and death
• Endgame - but to play it really sharply I have to be taking my time - or kibitzing ;)
• Whole board thinking
• Leaving and exploiting aji

My weaknesses:

• Too confident in my ability to rescue groups in danger. Actually, too confident in my life and death to recognize "non-fatal" danger, so that I let my opponent leave/exploit aji and never get around to playing honte.
• The opening
• Attack and defense
• Going for the kill when an opponent decides not to defend a group in mortal danger, daring me to try it

My style:

• Build influence early but also look for the beginnings of moyo; I like to think I take after Otake Hideo in this regard. Best role model I can think of for fuseki, really, and I need one :P Fuseki is difficult for me because you can't just read things out; you have to have heuristics for everything.
• Invade whereever possible early in the chuban. But I don't feel I'm very good with sabaki - my use of thickness is flexible but my invasions are not, strange as it sounds. I start out playing some kikashi and trying to make good shape (normally succeeding) but have sometimes unrealistic expectations about what I can make live. It's difficult to know when to connect for extra liberties vs. sacrifice for "tempo".
• Tend to play NiRenSei as either White or Black, occasionally low Chinese as Black. I rarely play "three-corner openings", preferring to let opponent make shimari and then block the extensions and/or make interesting-looking wariuchi.
• Trademark: centre plays in the fuseki which are a point or two away from the tengen, rather than exactly there. Usually after a bit more thought than I normally put into a move. Not always a good move. I do play the actual tengen if really does look like the center of symmetry?, but usually there is more development in one direction than another, and I let play away from thickness guide my placement.