Ways to avoid the taisha

    Keywords: Joseki

The taisha is complicated.
The taisha is scary and hair-raising.
The taisha is blood-thirsty.
That's all true, and weak kyu players like me are afraid of playing it! But what if our opponent challenges us with it and we do not feel like going on and fighting?
Luckily, we have many

Ways to Avoid the Taisha!!! [1]

(WARNING: The so-called "simple variations" are themselves joseki and full of variations, especially if one of the players departs from the established sequence, so always keep an alert eye on what's going on...)

The diagram below is the easiest and simplest:

[Diagram]

The simplest variation

A good follow-up for White is a (honte), for Black b. Of course Black gets influence and a moyo, but that can be avoided only by going for the complicated fighting variations...
The exception is the variation below labeled Connecting towards the center, which requires a favourable ladder (at W3 and W5 in that diagram):

[Diagram]

Standard variation...

White at a leads to the full-fledged taisha, but, having checked the ladder, we connect at b instead...

[Diagram]

...Connecting towards the center

In this way Black gets a lot of territory, but White has beautiful thickness in sente. For what's worth, I've won important games playing like this.


Other possibilities:

[Diagram]

Diagonal attachment, the old way

At this point it becomes important who gets to settle the corner: imagine what happens if White plays a (hint: have a look below...) before Black manages to play the sequence b-c-d-e-f...

[Diagram]

Diagonal attachment, the "new" way

This way of playing was invented by Kitani Minoru. Afterwards...

[Diagram]

Emphasising the left side

White cannot cut at a (hint: imagine a large-scale geta...).



Instead:

[Diagram]

Emphasising the top



Or even:

[Diagram]

Emphasising the left side again

Black 11 at a.


Author (so far): AvatarDJFlux


[1]

Bill: Since the taisha move has already occurred (BC in the initial diagram), it is too late to avoid it. ;-)

[Diagram]

Imagist: In all seriousness, this actually does prevent the taisha.

Tamsin: For what my thoughts are worth...don't avoid what you fear, but confront it! If you want to get strong, take on the challenge. Study the taisha and study the large avalanche, and feel confidence when things get wild!

Bob McGuigan: The Workshop Lectures, volume 1, by Yang Yilun, published by Slate and Shell has very good material on playing complicated joseki. It is based on the idea that if you pay attention to fundamentals you can play these joseki without having to memorize thousands of variations.

Imagist: For beginners (20k or weaker) I do think it's best to avoid the taisha since the fighting that it leads to is pretty far beyond their comprehension, so there isn't likely to be much learning. But I personally love the taisha, since it gives me a chance to practice reading.


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