Concepts of Fuseki - Part B

British Go Journal No. 16. March 1972. Page 9.

Adapted from an article by Takagawa

John Tilley

Continued from Part A on Page 7.

There is much discussion of the 'Figure' diagrams in this article. You may wish to open a second browser window with the same address to have one window reading the text and another viewing the figures.

Figure 3 (20-37)

Fig 3. White 20 and black 21 are miai points, i.e. if one player takes one the other will play the other one. If white had jumped to one point below the left side star point for 20, then black would play 21 as a kosumi to the left of 20. This kosumi would be severe as white's stones on the lower edge would come under attack sooner or later. Hence white 20 is aimed to settle these stones. Black 21 is natural. White can later cut at A or invade at B, so black's territory in the upper right corner is far from secure. The next problem we have to face is how to securewhite's right corner group. You will have noticed by now that securing a weak group comes before anything else. Amateur players tend to overlook their own weak groups and launch premature attacks, which is a bad way to play.

Diagram 12

Diagram 13

I hope you will all agree that white 22 is the only move to play now. I trust no-one would play 1 in Dia 12, which is alright in securing the white group, but it also secures black's upper corner. White could no longer play A or B in Fig 3. Black 23 develops a position on the left and white 24 is the usual response. After black 25 and white 26, black settles his lower left group in the same way as before. White missed an opportunity here; if he had played 24'* at 1 in Dia 13, then things could have ben better for him. White 32 is the correct extension from the star point. You should know that that white cannot enclose the corner (2 in Fig 1) with one more move, so he should increase his influence, and white 32 is the best way to do this. Also a black play around here would expand black's moyo.
* BGJ had 26.

Ref Diagram A

Ref Diagram B

Next Black 37 is an interesting move. The basic principle of extensions tells us this move is wrong. Ref Dia A shows that if black makes a wide three-step extension, white will be happy to invade at 3. If, however, Black has a wall of two stones, then he can make this three-step extension as in Ref Dia B. If white A, black can play B. But in this game black 37 threatens white's lower group, so I felt justified in playing this unusually wide extension.

Figure 4 (38-64)

White immediately stabilised his lower group by playing 38 below 28, just like 22 in the other corner. I will stop the discussion here, but I have given Fig 4 to show how the middle game started. (Eventually I won when White resigned.)

Diagram 14

Diagram 15

Diagram 16

There is one further point of interest and that is the 44, 45, 46 exchange. White 44 attacks the weak point of this shimari, so black 45 is played to patch up this sore point. Dias 14, 15 and 16 show how white can easily settle his position if black doesn't play 45.

In conclusion, I hope you have realsied just how much consideration professional players give to the question of stailising their weak groups before starting an attack. This is one of the main weaknesses of many amateur players.