Continuing a short series on words and how they influence us, and not always the way we should want to be influenced.



Black to play. Obviously he has been concentrating on a moyo. With that in mind, how should he proceed?

Answer:

Sorry, but I think that the diagram may represent a change in plans by black regardless of the meaning of the word 'moyo'.

Black's moyo has petered out, and one might even say that one or more of the last several of black's moves must have been an overplay. Black owes a move in the upper right and another one in the lower left. ( Black should complete the josekis with N15 and E7 ) Furthermore, the center of the board is wide open: A move around L9/M8 would support a substantial reduction on either the right side or the bottom.

Black can only fix one of these three issues, so rather than fight an uphill battle, he gets what he can in the corner, leaving white to reduce one side so that black might get the other.

There may be a lot implied in the word, but I don't see that this particular diagram proves it. If both of the josekis had been finished with their respective keimas, and then black still chose R5, then I'd consider it a stronger argument.

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These two josekis may or may not be continued, it is a matter of choice. The instability of the black group on the upper side may or may not be defended at M17, it is a matter of choice. The moyo / sphere of influence may or may not be reinforced, it is a matter of choice. The position permits these four different choices. Stabilising one of the four also contributes to stabilising others indirectly. Hence R5 is a possible, but not the only valid, move. As is M17.

I'm glad that this has been posted. I recently read Attacking and Defending Moyos (interesting book, might do a review soon) and have a hard time putting their 13th principle to use (this being my only quibble with this book).

The principle is that sometimes it is good to "reinforce a widely spaced moyo" before going on to expanding it. This idea is backed up by this position (Takemiya played 1):

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . O . . O . . X . . |
$$ | . . . , O . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X , . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . X . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

What is not made really clear, neither by the explanations, neither by the problems, is in which cases reinforcing should take precedence over expanding ("sometimes" is all we're given if I remember correctly). Still I have tried to implement that in my games, taking time, when my first instinct would be to build more and more, to see if a solid reinforcement move would not be more interesting. It is still unclear to me if I use the principle at the right times (probably not ) but I noticed that, while it tends to allow the opponent to reduce the moyo, it also made harder for him to launch invasions that would reduce it to nothing. One welcome consequence is that (some of these) moyo games were not the kill-the-invader-or-lose type I was accustomed to but allowed a more relaxed way of dealing with invasions.

In this light I can relate to R5 and reinforcing moyos, even if there may be a further distinction to be made between 1 in Takemiya's game (a move that still builds somehow) and r5 (a move geared towards actual territory).

I think it's probably a good thing that the book didn't make this clear. The good thing is, it seems that the book led you to consider defending when you would have otherwise always expanded. When it comes down to it, reinforcing the position has some value. You can think of the position if the colors were reversed - how much profit would you make by invading and reducing the opponent? On the flip side, how much is it worth, then, to defend that area? You can compare this to the amount you'd gain by expanding the moyo more.

It kind of sounds snarky, or maybe it sounds obvious, but you should play the one that is bigger. Generalizing to a one-size-fits all answer is too difficult, IMO.

In some cases expanding a moyo will be bigger, in other cases, reinforcing will be bigger. It may be complicated to accurately evaluate which is the case. But go is a complicated game.

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be immersed

Kirby,

Thanks for your comment. No snarkiness felt here . I think you're right, this principle is too broad and actual positions too many for rules of thumb to be easily given. And as you say, it seems the book managed to get its point across, so "mission accomplished". It is now up to me to learn by trial.

It's true that there often seems to be this "when exactly do I use this kind of tool" problem with much of go theory. It's nice to see that both you and Kirby take this kind of ambivalence on board as a part of the fabric of go. It's a flexible Daoist approach. The rigid Confucian approach would be to try to impose rules and definitions. History tells us that Daoism is most closely linked to go. Confucianists even tried to ban it.

One general piece of advice that can be applied here is that of shogi wizard Habu Yoshiharu that I quoted elsewhere: just keep accumulating data, which often includes trying new moves.

But actually there are often specific clues if you know where not to look. With a Confucian/Aristotleian mindset you look only where the rules or definitions or lists say you have to look. If you take the Daoist approach and let your unconscious do the seeing for you, you will notice more things. For example, in the text relating to the position above, Sonoda, whose focus is not really on R5 anyway (it's just the end of a variation explaining what he really is talking about), ends with a throwaway remark: "Black 11 reinforces his moyo. He has been able to develop with good momentum."

Two things about that remark. First 'with good momentum' would often have been translated 'in good shape'. I said in a different thread that this is mis-signposting. Second, assuming we have erected the right signpost now, that 'momentum' is our hidden extra data. R5 is good because it has a good follow-up. He can make his moyo truly "awesome". Maybe that's how you tell when it's time to reinforce a moyo. And if you experience the wuwei benefit of that, you learn even more - the wuwei (very roughly: no action) experience that gote can be good.

For Joaz: sorry but for you it's a case of can you stay behind after class. We need to talk. But for now let me repeat the old and perpetually ignored advice from school exams: read the *** question. It said Black has been concentrating on a moyo. You have turned that into Black's moyo. Who said there was only one moyo?

Hi John,

Fun to delve into the tidbits you bring up.
ww:

My thoughts on seeing the position:

First I was surprised it was black to move as he seems to have rather more than white. So I counted the stones and found it was a 3 stone handicap game. Then look around for weak groups and unfinished shapes: none really though there is the L17 checking extension for white that would pressure black a bit, but set against that is L17 is inefficient with o17. So black could play m17 to strengthen/grow that group which is also a nice move against the white corner, but maybe white's n17 is a nice answer because if black stands he himself feels overconcentrated (and you lose o16 sente which can be useful if white sets r14 in motion later). So how about big moves? Well r5 is clearly very big (and my choice of move) to close the corner and make white not have an easy-peasy invasion of the right side (such as s5 stuff then extend to r9). Of course after r5 white can still invade and live, but the resulting group would be a fair bit weaker and black can get nicer profit from chasing (and maybe lower side would become impossible to invade). Other ideas briefly considered for variety: o16 wall building, but the right side is so open it's not building anything real; L4, but still not solid with f2 aji), j11 or some such move, but rather hollow. N7 just because we talked about it before from a 3-4 shimari and it's funny.

As for John's comment about black concentrating on a moyo, this doesn't really feel like a 'classic' moyo to me. Sure black has a load of stones from the lower right corner extending out on both sides and has played 2 pincer josekis to develop that area. But there are no big thick walls (there's bad aji with the approach stone remaining in both pincer josekis) extending out to the centre (black's highest stones are 5th line) so it's more like a territorial game with some framework potential. So r5 seems eminently suitable.


Eh?! Although an over-liking for those keimas is a common mistake around low sdk/dan, I must say I am surprised by Joaz's strident view here. Leaving those pincer josekis without adding a move is very normal: I don't have komibilo/GoGoD to hand for a pattern search (waltheri is not so good for finding tenukis) but I wouldn't be surprised if tenuki is 'played' in >90% of cases those shapes appear. (At least in the last 10 years, I think adding a move may have been more common (though hardly required) longer ago: perhaps this is a case of dogmatic thinking based on possibly simplified/misunderstood ideas from 1970s/1980s Japan, which seems to be a common foible of Western go though one that is thankfully being corrected with newer sources of information).

Isn't R5 also the difference between a comfortable (central) invasions (to be followed by reduction) and not yet alive invasion options? I.e. ones that would have to move out allowing Black to build by bullying that poor group. (And isn't R5 turning the whole thing almost into two moyos?)

I think tenuki is pretty reasonable in many cases, especially since keima may take away the option of playing M17, for example, which is also a nice local follow up.

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be immersed

I always thought that the keima partially aimed at eventually playing M17 with sente. Not that I'm disputing the point that tenuki is often played with these pincer josekis. One thing I didn't know was whether there are certain pincers that have more or less of a demand for a followup.

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