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Kyu disease
Path: LifeAndDeath   · Prev: ApproachingALifeAndDeathProblemTheRightWay   · Next: LifeAndDeathTheBook
Path: Mistake   · Prev: KillYourselfInGote   · Next: LossMakingThreats

  Difficulty: Advanced   Keywords: MiddleGame, Life & Death, Tactics, Strategy, Go term, Humour

This malady suffered by many kyu level players is the mistake of wanting to kill just about any group of the opponent's on the board that the player feels they might have the slightest chance of killing.

As result, typical mistakes are made such as aji keshi and amarigatachi. One can also easily play one's own groups into trouble by stubbornly trying to kill, and lose important liberties too.

An antidote is to realize that often much profit can be obtained by chasing the group, or allowing it to live but live small.

Dieter: May I point out the disease that struck me by taking an overdose of the above described antidote: failure to kill a killable group, being satisfied with taking points chasing it, and losing on points.

HolIgor: I've noticed that the disease of the kyu players is rather than going for an unprepared kill, instead going for a kill when you are a little bit too thin. This can be disastrous. At the same time Dieter speaks about the situation when it is difficult to say if your were already prepared for a kill. Something where you have to read it out carefully and you couldn't, usually, because of the lack of time.

Charles The Greeks knew about this, a long time ago. Nothing in excess.

Alex Weldon: I guess it essentially comes down to how confident you are in your reading abilities. It's certainly a bad habit to try single-mindedly for a kill when you're not at all certain that you'll succeed (you end up with amarigatachi, more often than not). However, if you read a situation out, and you feel reasonably sure that you can, indeed, kill a largish group of stones (without hurting your position elsewhere too much), surely it's a mistake to pass up the opportunity. If you're like me, you often read things wrong... but it's still probably good to go for the kill, because if you're wrong, you'll probably learn something from the experience.

Charles One of my erstwhile pupils finally beat me in an even game; and afterwards made the comment that on the six previous occasions he'd had a group of mine which he thought was dying escape via ko. Sometimes reading it all out is beyond our ordinary capacities, and I'm sure at that point it is worth making a judgement instead. Landing a punch isn't the only way to win.

Andre Engels: It will often be as Charles describes, that one cannot decide whether killing will work or not. Often the better way of making the decision, is to look what will happen if you do not try to kill the group. If a more lenient attack is likely to end you in a favorable or equal position, going for the kill is a (too) risky way to play. If without killing you would be behind (to the extend that you can count it), then taking risks is exactly what you want to do most.

BlueWyvern: I actually have observered the inverse problem. A lot of kyu players seem to think that all invading stones are invincible and make exceedingly brash invasions. Since I've gotten better at positioning my thickness (and since reading AttackAndKill) something like %60-70 of my games have ended in me killing one, two, possibly even three big groups in the center. Looking back on these, my opponent could have gotten away in most of these cases with a simple reduction. I'd say the Kyu disease is a general disregard for safety in matters of life and death.



Path: LifeAndDeath   · Prev: ApproachingALifeAndDeathProblemTheRightWay   · Next: LifeAndDeathTheBook
Path: Mistake   · Prev: KillYourselfInGote   · Next: LossMakingThreats

This is a copy of the living page "Kyu disease" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.