Styles of play

[Abyssinica]

Be like me and make humongous moyos then try to keep a hold of it all.

[DrStraw]

Be like me and make humongous moyos then try to keep a hold of it all.

Be careful. Any moyo less than 361 points is invadeable.

[Abyssinica]

Be like me and make humongous moyos then try to keep a hold of it all.

Be careful. Any moyo less than 361 points is invadeable.

When I play Tengen, I make the entire board my moyo and the opponet is constantly invading.

[Bantari]

Each time I hear some player worrying about his or her "style", it reminds me of when the late Hans Pietsch's teacher (Kobayashi Satoru) was asked by the reporter "What is Hans' style?" - and the answer was "Style? What Style? He is too weak to have a style!" Hans was 3p at that time.

So my advice would be - don't worry about "style", this is just a huge distraction at your level, won't help you play any stronger. Play moves which you think are good, and then play moves which you think go well with the moves you just played. In other words - try to concentrate on finding moves which are good and on efficiency, not on finding moves which fit into some notion of "style" you probably are not even equipped to understand at your level.

Concentrate on keeping your groups alive, and on preventing your stones getting cut and your areas invaded.

PS>
And if you really, really, for some twisted reason, insist on this notion of "style" - just know that you don't choose a style, it chooses you, eventually. Otherwise, its just play-acting.

[SmoothOper]

Sometimes you have to step back and look at what people are doing that don't have a consistent style(s)(some players may have mastered multiple styles), and the disadvantages advantages of not having a style, and is there anything consistent about people that don't adhere to style. One of the draw backs of adhering to strictly is not taking advantage of opportunities or sub optimal moves that other players make, especially players that mimic others styles. So there is one style of play, opportunistic, the big disadvantage there is obvious, no consistency, however if you really got into it you could see that there is some sort of skill there maybe shape and or recall. Another category of non-stylistic players are players that are simply going to interfere with whatever you are doing to get you out of the book, a big disadvantage there is that eventually sente runs out.