Counter-atari

  Difficulty: Advanced   Keywords: Shape, Go term

Chinese: 反打 (fan3 da3)
Japanese: アテ返し (ate-kaeshi)
Korean:

[Diagram]

Counter-atari

W2 is counter-atari, responding to the atari of B1 by giving atari back. This is often a better alternative than the heavy connection at a.


[Diagram]

Follow-up

B1 naturally captures, after which W2 (or a, depending on the overall position) gives atari. B3 then connects.


[Diagram]

Huge ko

Instead of connecting, B3 here starts a huge ko fight, potentially a game-deciding ko. White will likely ignore any ko threat and resolve the ko with W6.

[Diagram]

Farmer's hat

For White to instead connect with W1 here is the farmer's hat, an empty triangle of a very heavy kind. This is rarely a good play.

[Diagram]

Later possibilities

Black will have a pincer stone at one of the points a to f. With a close pincer (a or b) White now usually connects solidly at p, with the aim of extending to the marked point. With the more distant pincers d and e White makes the trumpet connection at q for better shape (the other two pincers are rare in this pattern).

Charles Matthews


This is a copy of the living page "Counter-atari" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2009 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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