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Low Knight's Move Approach to Mokuhazushi
   

I would like to examine the practical experience with mokuhazushi as a background for looking at the different joseki. As a first step I have summarized the historical results as found by searching the Go Games on Disk (May 2002 version) using kombilo. DaveSigaty

[Diagram]
Diag.: Search Pattern

I ran the search on the otherwise empty quadrant plus one extra line above and to the left. This minimizes but does not completely eliminate continuations that are directly based on the positions to the left or above.


[Diagram]
Diag.: Main Continuations

Numerically these are the top 11 continuations where Black plays next. Note that the search position occurs very frequently but that the players very often tenuki from here. Thus there is a big question of whether Black plays next (= a mokuhazushi situation) or White plays next (= a komoku situation). We will only look at the 11 plays for Black shown.

Statistics:

Note: read the following information as (in the case of the first line): Black plays at a in 86 cases (9 times immediately on the next move, otherwise with one or more plays in between), Black won 40.7% of the games in which this move was played while White won 54.7%. The remainder of 4.6% were cases with no winner = jigo, unfinished, result unknown, etc.

 Ba:  86  (9), B40.7% - W54.7%
 Bb: 103 (16), B44.7% - W54.4%
 Bc: 202 (14), B39.1% - W56.4%
 Bd: 468 (85), B38.5% - W56.6%
 Be: 251 (33), B49.4% - W45.8%
 Bf: 301 (38), B53.5% - W44.9%
 Bg:  43  (5), B41.9% - W55.8%
 Bh: 355 (95), B45.1% - W49.0%
 Bi: 381 (88), B42.0% - W52.0%
 Bj: 316 (62), B41.8% - W50.0%
 Bk:  56  (2), B42.9% - W53.6%

For me it is fascinating that only two of the continuations for Black have winning records (Black's winning percentage is higher than White's): the one-space low pincer at e and the knight's move at f. The actual experience for all other moves is that White wins more often than Black. In particular the taisha joseki (Black at d) has a very clear advantage for White with the best winning percentage in actual practice. Despite this, the taisha has been the most popular continuation by a fairly wide margin.

Speculating on why the results might be so poor for Black, we can see that playing 5-3 and letting White enter at the 3-4 point cedes the corner territory to White. Black does so in expectation of taking compensation on the outside. However, it seems that Black needs to pressure White if he is to gain sufficient compensation for the loss of the corner. Black does not seem to be able to do this consistently with simple extensions up the side or loose pincers. For her part White has the corner. If Black pincers, White chooses whether to sit tight in the corner or fight it out. Black can normally dictate matters on one side but can not easily do so on both sides simultaneously.

The 5-3 results also tell the player who opens with 3-4 something. When the opponent approaches at the 5-3 point, think seriously about tenuki. The corner then converts into a 5-3 opening which is difficult for the opponent to exploit. Even better in a komoku - tenuki scenario, the opponent did not plan to play 5-3 to begin with and is suddenly confronted with the need to choose a continuation :-)



This is a copy of the living page "Low Knight's Move Approach to Mokuhazushi" at Sensei's Library.
(C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.