Tenuki

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  Difficulty: Introductory   Keywords: Go term

Chinese: 脱先 (tuo4 xian1)
Japanese: 手抜き (tenuki)
Korean: 손뺌 (sonppaem)

Tenuki, a Japanese go term adopted into English, denotes playing somewhere else. Black plays tenuki by not answering White's last move locally, but instead adding a move in another part of the board [1].

Table of contents

Why tenuki matters

One of the most common amateur mistakes is getting locked into the local fight and continuing to play there when there are larger plays elsewhere. Tenuki is always an option.

A proverb says 'play the big points first', but playing tenuki without knowledge does not work. There is a difference between a play that is big and one that is urgent. Therefore, another proverb says: Urgent points before big points. Taking a move to play a big point will be successful only if continuing in the same place has lost some of its urgency.

Another more tangible but also more debatable proverb says: If it's worth only 15 points, play tenuki.

Yet another proverb counsels us to play tenuki when at a loss as where to play locally.

When tenuki matters

Stronger players will lead weaker players around by the nose, choosing the agenda. This is because the weaker player will simply not know as much in several areas of the game.

For example, in life and death, a weaker player might be able to play tenuki, gaining sente, but instead answers, simply because the player does not understand the life and death of that shape.

In another example, a balanced corner situation (joseki) that is best left alone, may be immediately disturbed by the player who does not know he can play tenuki, and make a more balanced move from the point of view of the whole board.


(Sebastian:) For the guessing feature in Miniban, I'm trying to implement a rough classification of a move as "Tenuki". Of course tenuki actually is defined by its function, but is it possible to estimate an empirical distance that can be used as a rule of thumb? (It probably would decrease as the game progresses, but I only need a rough average.) BTW, how could we define distance on a goban?


[1] To be precise, when he makes a move, not directly affecting the local position. A ladder breaker namely, can be played in the opposite corner, but it affects the local position. A ladder breakers is therefore not to be considered as a real tenuki play.


See also


Authors

Wiki master edit by Dieter


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This is a copy of the living page "Tenuki" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2007 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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