Sunday, January 5, 2014

MWA Go Lessons

I added to the links section, an entry for the Malaysian Weiqi Association Go Lessons blog. It's full of great stuff that I didn't find in books. Unfortunately the last post dates July 2011.

This is a paragraph I found very interesting, the full post can be found here.

In Book 6 of Machiavelli’s ART OF WAR, he said, “Great care is also to be taken not to reduce an enemy to utter despair. Julius Caesar was always very attentive to this point in his wars with the Germans, and used to open a way for them to escape after he began to perceive that, when they were hard pressed and could not run away, they would fight most desperately; he thought it better to pursue them when they fled, than to run the risk of not beating them while they defended themselves with such obstinacy.”

This advice is true and applicable to Go too. When you are attacking your opponent’s stone, if you become unreasonable and attacks too hard, very often you will find a strong resistance and you risk getting captured yourself. It is better to just pursue your opponent’s stone, threatening to capture them but not forcing it too hard, and in the process of pursuing them, obtain advantage such as securing territory or building influence and strength.

1 comment:

  1. What a great analogy to go! I can definitely attest to making that mistake numerous times. Thanks for sharing!

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