Atari Atari
Bill: Once I dropped by a Go club in Kyoto when an 8 dan was giving a class. I sat in. In critiquing an amateur game he said, "Atari! Atari! It feels good, but maybe it's not so good."
Before Black gives atari, White has two liberties and Black has a cutting point at a. After Black's atari and White's extension, White has three liberties and Black has two cutting points, a and b, to worry about.
This example illustrates the problem. It feels good to make forcing plays, but often the result is to strengthen the opponent's stones and to weaken our own.
Cases where atari-atari in a different sense, atari followed by atari, is appropriate include
- ladder (of course)
- driving tesuji.
See also Beginners play atari.
tderz: The following saying comes from a booklet called "Proverbs": "Atari, atari - vulgar play !"
Examples
__Unnecessary, bad atari affecting the Life&Death status of a group
tderz: After the vulgar atari ,
Black must come back in gote and defend the cutting point a.
This gives White just enough tempo to save her group with b + c ("6 on the 2nd line in the corner lives").
Why is so vulgar, so bad?
- First, as explained, it loses a tempo.
- Secondly (of course linked) it removes a weakness of White:
tderz: is a weak spot in White's formation:
Black can peep there and has the miai pairs a-b and c-d to kill.
Right: The weakness has been removed (it's white's turn on the right side)
I dare to say that in 95% of all occasions where a player below 5 kyu (guessed) wants to play Atari -
it's superfluous, aji keshi; hence detrimental.
If a DDK player only played atari for very clearly formulated reasons (to him/herself, in his/her mind). e.g.:
- eventually capturing stones
- holding opponent down to a certain number of liberties
- ladder
- oshi-tsubushi (squashing for own life)
- destroying the opponent's shape
- shibori (squeezing)
- maximizing efficiency
- e.g. sacrificing two, then giving atari (still might already aji-keshi, when giving atari too early)
- holding opponent down to a certain number of liberties
etc. etc. - s/he might get two stones strength improvement alone by holding back all ataris for which you could not clearly define a reason. (Because many more opportunities would occure, because the opponent's stones would not be settled.)
If atari was given too early - often one regrets later not to have the possibility to give an atari from another side or to another stone.