Life In 19x19

I'd like to know what your plan is when confronted with a high influence-oriented opening such as this one. My plan is to stay calm, but usually that's what occurs to me after the game. During the game, I typically get trapped, frazzled and bedoozled.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c
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Basically my goal would be to: keep a balance between my influence and territory, while trying to force the opponent to overcommit to influence with his/her high stones. A more fighting oriented game is likely to happen (rather than peaceful moves), so I would accept this early one and enjoy the game. With these 6-4 stones, playing on the 4-4 point is usually a mistake.

My plan:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c
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$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

It's really annoying for white if black tries to outdo him

I am, incidentally, being serious here - I think this is quite a good strategy. Whilst some of the moves may be subpar (maybe tengen...), none are obviously bad, and black has the advantage of the first move anyway. Meanwhile, you've shifted the burden of 'what do I do!?' onto white, whose unprotected corners are now juicy, and whose resulting walls are not so threatening if black has the moyo.

It also helps that, by pushing into the middlegame early, you can quickly forget the exact positions of the opening stones without needsing to worry about them much. Obviously it's more complicated than that, but...well, I think it's fun.

My solution: play it yourself for the next 10 games to see what the drawbacks are...

Thanks for your ideas.

Does anyone disagree with either logan or amnal btw? While neither of them suggest going all out for territory, their approaches are a bit different from one another - though it is perhaps just a matter of style.

daniel_the_smith wrote:My solution: play it yourself for the next 10 games to see what the drawbacks are...

Sounds like a job for ....

I personally prefer amnal's approach. Fight fire with fire. But it probably doesn't matter that much, at least at my level there are still 20+ point midgame errors occurring.

I think both logan's and amnal's approaches are valid. I've always gone with logan's, because I had never thought of amnal's before. For me, I sometimes get nervous facing weird openings because I can't find a way to take a huge advantage from it, and that leaves me feeling behind. If I just correct my judgment and not require myself to show my opponent how "stupid" is opening is, there's less pressure on me.

But if you really struggle with it, I think the best way to learn is its weaknesses is to do what Daniel said and to play it yourself and see where it seems to comes up short. If it doesn't seem to come up short, well, you have a new opening .

daal wrote:I'd like to know what your plan is when confronted with a high influence-oriented opening such as this one. My plan is to stay calm, but usually that's what occurs to me after the game. During the game, I typically get trapped, frazzled and bedoozled.

$$c
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$$ ---------------------------------------

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c
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$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

My plan from here would be to play calmly while not laughing out loud. There is no reason to think that White's plays are especially powerful. If they were, we would have seen them in the Meijin title game last week! I would probably play D3 here and leave it White to demonstrate why the chosen opening was a good idea. There are two basic outcomes: 1. White kicks my you-know-what, in which case I learn something new, or 2. It turns out to be smoke and mirrors so I can go around feeling superior until my next opponent teaches me the error of my ways.

ez4u wrote:... There is no reason to think that White's plays are especially powerful. If they were, we would have seen them in the Meijin title game last week! ...

Unfortunately, that often doesn't mean that they are easy to handle correctly...

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c
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$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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$$ | . . . 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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$$ | . . b . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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I would probably play a Chinese-type move at 'a' or just enclose normally at 'b'. From White's point of view, it's not efficient to play on the bottom now; the 6-4 points aren't good for making territory. So why play on the bottom and give him a target to attack? I'd rather play elsewhere and wait until later to invade. Ideally I want to make it hard for White to use the thickness he'll get from attacking my invasion.

But really almost any reasonable looking move is just fine.

Dusk Eagle wrote:I think both logan's and amnal's approaches are valid. I've always gone with logan's, because I had never thought of amnal's before. For me, I sometimes get nervous facing weird openings because I can't find a way to take a huge advantage from it, and that leaves me feeling behind. If I just correct my judgment and not require myself to show my opponent how "stupid" is opening is, there's less pressure on me.

But if you really struggle with it, I think the best way to learn is its weaknesses is to do what Daniel said and to play it yourself and see where it seems to comes up short. If it doesn't seem to come up short, well, you have a new opening .

My new opening

Well, just one fast game - but since I've been neglecting the experiment and see method, I was quite pleased that I even tried it, and even more pleased with the game. I was black, and MHO neglected both amnal and logan's advice and went for territory. Eventually, he had to invade and I did a nice job fending it off starting around move 85 (if I do say so myself). Here it is:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c
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$$ | . . c 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

The top left corner looks like a big area now and 5 looks reasonable. Black c would also close the corner, but it leaves white a potential move at d, which might be useful in this game (we could make certain assumptions about how white likes to play from these first two moves and try to interfere with their preferred style, though we may be wrong of course).

It would take white several moves to consolidate the bottom so there's no need to rush in yet. Entering one of white's corners immediately could be an interesting probe, but it could give white the initiative in the opening and leave the big point in the top left open. White may be hoping for this.

You can assume that if you play at either of the 3-4 points at the bottom, white may well have studied some of the tricky variations that can arise. There's nothing wrong with doing that, but if you prefer to keep the game simple and solid, you can just wait to see what white does after 5 and treat A and B as miai for now. It's hard for white to play severely against those moves.

Interesting David. That was actually the move I made in the game. But I did in fact get tricked a bit.

I am continuing to try Daniel-the-Smith's suggestion, and am now 2-0. This time I was white, and again my opponent went for territory and couldn't resist my juicy corners. He also started charging into the center, but I managed to cut it off, chase it and build some positions facing my influence. My opponent missed a couple of good moves, such as 41 at p17 or 47 at p5. Also, my 238 was a foolhardy ko threat that he might have ignored forcing me to fight a desperate ko for the life of my group; I should have just connected. Here it is for your perusal:

It's kinda magical the way thickness works, and it's easy to underestimate it. I'm glad you're winning

(...and when you finally encounter someone with an appreciation for thickness, you'll have an example of how to play against the opening! The plan can't fail! *evil laugh*)