Making use of influence: Question 2

[BlindGroup]

Playing black, I found myself in the position below. What is the right way to respond to the white approach? This seems to be a question of how best to use the position I have on the top right. In retrospect, the pincers seems to just take territory with it while A allows me to use it to threaten white. I think A was the way to go, although I played D at the time. Is A right?

[John Fairbairn]

One of the biggest benefits of playing over pro games is that you very often come across situations where you exclaim in surprise, "Oh, I didn't realise you could do that!" In other words, we are all prone to a kind of tunnel vision and need to expand our horizons.

In your case above you need to add O3 to the inventory. This sort of move is very common in pro play. One way to think about it is to say that if White now plays on the right side, he runs the risk of playing too close to thickness. You can also think of it as a direction-of-play issue. It's generally better to move into virgin areas than to plough the same land over and over. Another approach is to say that it's still the fuseki - why do you want to play the middle game?

Here is an example from pro play in the last month. An Kuk-hyeon 8-dan played White A in a Korean League match (and won).

[Kirby]

I don't know what the right answer is, but I'd play 'B'. I wouldn't play R9 in your variation for 'B'. I would cut.

[Bill Spight]

Just a couple of quick comments.

The two step keima is not original with me. It goes back to Go Seigen and Takagawa, and even further back to Hattori Inshuku. Not all the keimas you played may be best, but it is good to try things out and see how they work for you.

Also, John Fairbairn has a good point about the O-03 response. I noticed in pro games going way back that they often did not pincer from a position like Black's on the right side. They could be content to seal it off it when the opponent later approached it. I suspect that AlphaGo would not have pincered, either. It does not like to play pincers very much.

But you could hardly call your 2 space pincer a bad play. If White had made a double approach, you could attach on top of the pincered stone, and if White then plays a hane, the crosscut is good.

Good luck!