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Pincer
34PointJosekis
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Missing pincer
    Keywords: Joseki

[Diagram]
No comment?



Books on joseki usually make no reference at all to the pincer B1.

One theory is that White can play tenuki here and not suffer too much damage. Therefore it is better to pincer on the fourth line.

[Diagram]
Magic Sword tenuki



Certainly if Black later adds the circle-marked stones in, the square-marked pincer stone belongs on the fourth line as shown.


Dave Sigaty: Not only the marked stone below but b as well is missing from the dictionaries. One possible explanation is covered on high vs low pincer. The play a is the only low pincer commonly used against the one-space high approach move.

[Diagram]
More than one missing pincer

Searching the GoGoD CD with an otherwise empty quadrant returns 13 games with this shape. Out of the 13, four are actual pincers played at the marked stone. All four are cases where Black already has a stone at one or the other of the points marked c. The other nine games are all cases where White plays the high approach with the marked black stone already on the board (3483 enclosure). We can reasonably say that the two-space low pincer does not exist in professional play on a "stand alone" basis.



Bob McGuigan: In a sense the two-space low "pincer" to the high approach move isn't really a pincer. When a stone is really pincered it is inside the sector line created by the pincering stones. This puts a lot more pressure on the pincered stone. With the two (and more) space low pincer the "pincered" stone looks more like an erasing stone than an invading one. When Black does play the two space low pincer White has a fairly severe response at the marked stone in the diagram:

[Diagram]
White's cover play



After this the black pincering stone might well end up too close to white thickness.

JF: I have no special insights on this, but it seems to me that the comments above are on the right lines. I say this partly because of a definition of a pincer I read in a Chinese book. It made the point that a pincer (jia) was not just an attack from both sides but that it was a "converging" attack. It seems to me that the two black stones here in no way converge, unless you assume umpteen free moves. This is just another way of saying what has already been said, of course.



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