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Relying On Trick Plays
Path: BadHabits   · Prev: RefuseToTakeHandicap   · Next: ResignRightBeforeTheDameAreFilled
    Keywords: Strategy

Bangneki gambling strategy aside (as detailed in the wonderful novel "First Kyu"), I think that hoping a "trick" play will fool your opponent is generally a subtle Bad Habit that players fall into when playing against weaker opponents frequently. (I do it myself, but I'm trying to stop.)

I am not referring to such tricks (hamete?) as described in the KillWithABorrowedKnife page; nor do I mean such ploys as not killing a killable group right away (in the assumption that the weaker player doesn't see the danger, so you can kill it at leisure). Instead, I mean such things as making a cut you know will not work because you're pretty sure your opponent can't read that it doesn't work. See Playing with the hope that your opponent doesn't see what you're doing for a better expression of what I meant. (On further thought, maybe it's ok in an informal game, if she shows Black how she swindled him later when they analyse the game.)

The "proper" way to catch up in a high handicap game as White is to lightly make sabaki, and wait for Black's slack moves; not resort to dubious trickery which can blow up in your face if Black stumbles into the correct refutation. If Black does not make slack moves, then the handicap should be lower -- good! Black is making progress.

I think this "bad habit" hurts the one who does it more than the opponent (unlike SocksAside or ContinueWhileDozensOfPointsBehind), so perhaps it's not an ethical question. But ultimately, the player you disrespect by relying on swindles is yourself: you are saying that you don't think you're really that much stronger than the weaker player.

Yi Ch'ang-ho learned this in a game with Rui Naiwei, as described in Janice Kim's American Go Journal (Summer 2000, page 10) review of A Stone Fell from Heaven (Yi's autobiography):

...Chang-ho mentions that he considered giving up playing Go because of the disgust and regret he felt after a game he lost many years ago against Rui Naiwei. After reviewing the game over and over... Chang-ho realized that he should have lost the game, and, through a long inner voyage, admitted that he was playing as if his opponent would not play very well instead of hoping that she would play the best moves possible.
SAS: Does anyone know which game this was between Yi and Rui? My guess would be their game in the 2nd Ing Cup on 15 July 1992, as this was presumably the first time they played each other.

The corollary Good Habit must be to respect your opponent's ability.


I had hoped to spark a little debate with this page. Perhaps I should have put it in the Controversial Statements, like "Relying on Tricks is Bad." But since nobody has debated it, I've been debating with myself :-) and I have to admit, I'm not as sure of myself as I was when I first wrote this page. This is because, in a tournament, I won't actually break the rules, but I'm surely not above accepting a win by swindle; and, if (for the sake of argument) I'm way behind in a handicap game and I think my opponent can't read that the ladder doesn't work, I'm not above playing the ladder. (Often to my regret.)

-- TakeNGive (11k)


Jenny Radcliffe I agree with you entirely that it's a bad habit and was actually going to put something up myself about it. A player at my club, who I have been playing for months now at a 5-stone handicap, does this a lot - plays overplays, which I know are overplays, but I don't know and can't work out how to punish them properly. I don't learn from it, he doesn't learn from it - who gains?

Jenny Radcliffe Oh yes. And it's particularly bad, in my view, when you're miles ahead! I don't mind so much when my opponent does it to get ahead. But when he's already ahead by 60+ points, I just get disheartened by it.


If there is no debate, that's maybe because everybody agrees. Nice anecdote on Yi. --DieterVerhofstadt


I have to admit that I don't really understand the topic of the discussion. I don't know any trick moves. Do you? Can you give an example? What do you mean by a trick move?

I play in earnest. Sometimes I don't know what the honte move is in a given situation. Sometimes I get punished, sometimes I don't. Quite often I play in the opponent's territory if that does not hurt the outside, but that happens if I don't see the result clearly and think that I can get some advange of it. Sometimes I can make an invasion in the corner to set up a semeai which I would lose but which would help me to get surrounding moves in sente. Actually, it is a technique (See Squeeze, Semedori.)

But the main principle is the same as for other games. You are more likely to find a winning combination when your position is better.

What's more. My opponents make mistakes. A lot of them. That's why I win some games. I like to analyse the games I have won. It is less painful. If I see that the opponent's move was not optimal and it was me really who made a mistake I have a consolation. It might seem that I made a trick move but actually I did not.

I have to agree that if you know some moves that work against weaker opponents only it is better to forget about them. They are not fun and what is more they prevent you from looking for far better moves at this particular moment. And, yes, of course, I like aji in opponent's constructions. I don't like to play ajikeshi. --HolIgor


I have had the unpleasant experience of playing an ordinary move and having my opponent "know" it was a sleazy trick play, probably because Chinese Go books differed from Japanese Go books on the merits of the move. I was visiting the Canadian office of a group of programmers our group was collaborating with, and their boss was a Go player so we played a game. I played the joseki used in move 8 of game 3 of the 1971 Honinbo Tournament. He got angry, saying I was trying to trick him.:-( The variation shown in Dia. 2 of Iwamoto's book is somewhat tricky, but I wasn't intending to play it, just the very simple one Ishida followed in that game. I just tend to like low, solid variations, so that e.g. I often open on the 3-3 point. I still play that joseki sometimes, and wonder whether other Chinese players are offended too. Probably I should've photocopied two pages from Iwamoto afterwards and mailed them to him, "the kind of trick play that's suitable for use against Rin Kaiho," but unfortunately that didn't occur to me at the time. -- WilliamNewman



Path: BadHabits   · Prev: RefuseToTakeHandicap   · Next: ResignRightBeforeTheDameAreFilled
This is a copy of the living page "Relying On Trick Plays" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.