No reason to bother with this entire game as my opponent let it get out of hand somewhere around move 100. I'm mainly concerned with how I handled the fuseki, especially in regard to my invasion at move W29. It seemed to me that I had no choice but to invade his sphere of influence being mounted in the top left, however, it got me into some trouble in the bottom right that a stronger player would have most certainly exploited.

_________________
Thinking like a go player during a game of chess is like bringing a knife to a gun-fight. Thinking like a chess player during a game of go feels like getting knifed while you're holding a gun...

I would only do this if I thought I could attack severely the pincer stone, or the centre was more important. Jumping into the corner at the 3-3, or, if you want to create complication (always a good thing in a handicap game) a double approach would be better.

A mistake. Black should play F4.

Play F4 yourself and enclose his corner. He will have to answer if he doesn't want it to die, but his corner group will have little impact on the game.

Tenuki is bad. The usual joseki end in B sente (with the close pincer, playing O4 to kill off the approach stone isn't as urgent) so playing it out would settle the position. Now W may get sente to play the next move in the bottom right corner.

Why high? Generally, I think it's inferior to the low approach. I'm not actually familiar enough with the situation where it is good, though, so I may be mistaken. Still, the question "why this approach instead of the other" is something you should think about.

Personally, I would attach at F16 instead, but that may simply be a matter of preference.

Mistake. R10 instead.

Argh. Cross-cut is the only move here.

Hi Joelneslsonb.

Here are a few comments:

edit:it seems Bki beat me to it, but I will post them anyway.


should be at f4 or maybe f5. When black answered W's jump out with a jump with the pincer stone instead of the corner stone, he is givnig you a big advantage in the corner, allowing you to surround it completely. When you tenuki you allow Black to take F4, which puts your pincer stones under attack.

It is usually a good idea to respond to an approach to a 4-4 stone. Also the high approach should be seen as a special case scenario. It is best to use in combination with influence on the side you are approaching from. I think it gives away too much corner territory compared to what W gets for regular use.

incredibly small. If you are that worried about the cut, there are much larger ways to protect against it.
M17 for instance.

leaves behind a tesuji for black at Q9. It is better to play more solidly with Q8.

let you off easy. The cut at R10 captures your two cutting stones.

A few comments. Redundancy is good.

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Everything with love. Stay safe.

I'm going to go out on a slightly facetious limb and say that there is no case when approaching high is "good" as such, there are only cases where the small knight's approach is bad.

As more general (and serious) advice, 2 stone handicap games are barely handicap games. You should approach them as if you're playing an even game, play the best moves you can find, and just trust that your opponent will make slow moves, etc. to allow you to catch up by the time the game is in late endgame. Being greedy or trying to be too fast will just get you into trouble, because your opponent can see through most of your ploys.

Hey, I'm sure I would become stronger if I learned to recognize where the small knight's approach was bad . This make me think of a thought I had about high/low approach : given that the 4-4 is more oriented toward influence, playing the high approach, means you will be competing from the same thing, but with your opponent having the advantage of the first move in this corner. Meanwhile, a low approach, more oriented toward territory, make it easier to get an equal result. Is my theory sound, or am I way off mark?

(That say, pondering whether to approach low or high is still valid when approaching a 3-4 or 3-5)



As you will likely be stronger at fighting than your opponent, I would also say to seek complication more readily than in an even game. Though obviously this doesn't mean you should cross-cut when there's no way you can get a good result or play blatant overplays.

Well, the small-knight's approach offers a lot of flexibility because it opens up the corner aji in a big way. This means that depending on your strategic goal, it's easy to sacrifice the stone to invade the corner in a larger fashion, or to play on the outside and keep it in reserve, or to slide in for a base and split it, or many other things. With the high approach, and the more distant ones, that aji doesn't open up in the same way. Consider this example:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c
$$ ---------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . 8 2 4 . 0 . . . .
$$ | . 6 3 X 5 . . . . ,
$$ | . 7 9 . . . . . . .
$$ | . . O . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . 1 . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Normally white can't get so large a corner, but black can't hane with on account of the white approach stone, which will cause him problems. White could also have chosen to double approach, or to jump out to reduce influence (a joseki which also benefits from being able to invade the corner later). In other joseki, white will use a slide into the corner to make miai between taking the side and taking the corner. This doesn't work with a high approach nearly as well.

When white plays the high approach, there is still aji in the corner, as there was to begin with, but it doesn't increase it in the same way. Being on the 4th line, it also can't form a base as easily. It's more useful in the case where you're looking to expand a moyo on the side, for example, and in that case, going back to my statement, I think that it's virtue isn't that it's such a great move, so much as that the small knight's move might be bad, because black can attach on top or otherwise press white down.

If you look at pro games, the proportion of the small knight's approach to 4-4 as compared to all other moves is so high, more than 90% of the time according to Sensei's, that it's hard to call every other move anything but a compromise by current thinking. As for the other opening moves in the corner, approach move choice tends to be dictated much more by circumstance or goal.

So there's been talk about the high approach at W11. I played here because I wanted to set up a wall to influence the area below it. Though the Q12 stone was played as a response, I knew that conflict in this area would be inevitable. Therefore, I chose to allow black to take a large corner in exchange for the influence needed to kill what would later be the Q12 group. This was the primary reason for the placement of the invasion at L16. I did think of destroying black's base, however, what good would it do if he still has the corner? The L16 stone was placed to look like it was putting pressure on the F17 wall, only to mask my plan of continuing a wall from L16 to Q15. Though my opponent didn't respond where I had hoped, he still gave me the opportunity to connect and then attack Q12. Seeing as all of this went according to plan (including the death of the attacked group), what was wrong with the high approach? Personally, I generally prefer to approach high just because I don't like making territorial moves so early in the game. Who care's about early points when you can get a fighting advantage? As has been demonstrated, black had an easy escape from my attacking stones, however, what was it about my strategy that was inferior?

_________________
Thinking like a go player during a game of chess is like bringing a knife to a gun-fight. Thinking like a chess player during a game of go feels like getting knifed while you're holding a gun...

It is not like the high approach is a horrible move that turns the whole game in your opponent's favor. It is just that it is sub-optimal. Assuming optimal play from both players after a high approach, you give more than you get.

There's also something to be said for playing moves that take your opponent out of their book (of joseki known by them, etc.) in a handicap game, so that your presumably better reading can prevail over theirs. However, this is much more relevant to high handicap games, starting at say, 4 stones, than it is to a two stone game.