Saturday, December 7, 2013

Low for development

The following diagram is a common joseki when approaching the 3-4 point.


Maybe I missed the part in the books where black 6 is explained, or it's not explained because it's assumed to be obvious, but it wasn't obvious for me until a friend explained it to me.
I asked myself why black would play 6 instead of playing at A, and the answer is that black 6 trades territory for further development, and the potential for development is key in Go.






This is what happens when white plays at A:


Black can continue to develop along the 3rd line and white is left with bad shape.











On the other hand, if black played at A instead of 6, these are possible continuations:



On the left diagram, black's development along the right side is blocked, and on the right diagram, black is kept low while white gains influence towards the center.

1 comment:

  1. In the second picture, it's not that White has bad shape, but more along the lines of that does not really gain anything by making this exchange and even loses the aji of a possible invasion later on if the conditions are ripe. In addition, the reason Black jumps out with the knight's move has something to do with "getting ahead" which Kageyama talks about in his book as well.

    For the possible continuations, the one on the left is not good for Black because it forms an empty triangel and let's White seal him in. Instead, if White were so bold as to jump to 1, Black would probably just cut straight through and divide White into two groups. The one on the right is the most likely scenario.

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