I was recently playing in a rengo game where a position came up that I had questions about:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . O X . . . . X . . . 3 . . . . |
$$ | . . O , O X . . . , . . . . c , X . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . b . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . O , . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . X . . O . O O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

So in order:

In response to is the pincer at better or worse than closing the corner at C?

After , ; should black play to split at B or fix the right side aji at A?

I expected black to play at B, but black played A instead, saying after the game that this was a key point, and the stronger white player agreed. My inclination is that allowing white to take B after black A is incredibly painful, more than the aji of not playing A, and that following this exchange, black was left behind in the game.

Finally, after black A, white B, how would you follow up as black?

I like the pincer.



I like B.

Edit: Aside from that, B is consistent with the pincer. Rengo is a partnership game.



I would resign.

Actually, I would crawl underneath B and live in the corner.

Edit: Living in the corner leaves White with a wall facing Black strength on both the top side and the right side. It seems to me to be the plan that makes sense of Black's previous moves.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I was severely tempted. To resign, that is. I ended up choosing to approach the bottom left with the high 1-space approach, as I didn't want to make white strong locally in the upper right, making black's thickness at the top and on the right somewhat useless and didn't know what else to do.

See my edits to the previous post.

Your play may be objectively best, but rengo is a partnership game, and it seems to me that living in the corner is what is consistent with Black's previous play.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Hmm... I considered the resulting position bad after black lived in the corner, but now I'm curious if my judgement is off.

I would have never found "a" but living in the corner and leaving white with useless wall seems awesome.

I would even think it might be possible to attack the white wall.

But yeah I probably would have played c and never seen this problem.

Errrr what? Black A is incredibly slow, particularly with 2 already in place. White is a dan player?

Instead of following up on the pincer by a play at "b", your partner backed his judgement by playing at "a". Then you backed your judgement by approaching the bottom left corner. As Znosko-Borovsky said about chess, "Order, counterorder, disorder!" In rengo you have to back up your partner's judgement, too.

Edit: Unless you are the captain, OC.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Maybe 4d for white and a variable 2-3d for the black player? I suspect that white's evaluation was very cursory, as it was said quickly and more in terms of A is quite big, not so much that it's bigger than B, in retrospect.

Somewhat off-topic, I have noticed that a lot of the older players in our club, who learned go in the 70s often, have a somewhat softer and less fight-based style that concentrates on steady territorial gains and reductions, compared to the younger players. My assumption is that this is a stylistic choice, to some degree, based on the teaching materials available at the time and the dominance of Japanese players at the time, with their seeming preference for games decided in the endgame.



Well, it was a very informal game, so it is what it is. I have definitely noticed that it helps a great deal to have a partner who has a similar approach to the game as you do, since that way you tend to see the same aji and have the same aims. Otherwise, if our judgement is different enough, it can be hard to see what my opponent is aiming at.

Oddly enough, black ended up winning this game despite this situation. I'm not sure I can point to a particular mistake on white's part that lead to it, though.

Did you make the common contract bridge mistake of referring to your partner as your opponent?



I am not surprised. White's play has hardly been dynamic. See White's development in the top left corner.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Here's the game as far as I remember it clearly, before things got fuzzy:


Things went off the rails at move 5, so to speak, as I expected black to tenuki the top left for an open corner at this point. How would you suggest white play more dynamically, though? Take sente from the top left?

Yes. White has two basic replies to , the keima at and the enclosure at . White played both, which was inefficient. Maybe should be at K-17 to start a battle.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

One more question, I suppose:

Thoughts on the choice of avalanche in the lower left?

It seems like a curious choice to me. Black can hane instead, and, since he already has an extension on the bottom side, is a tempo ahead. Also, the hanging connection ( ) makes it easy for White to sacrifice the stone on C-04. Black can tenuki, but if he wants to play the hanging connection, better to atari the C-04 stone at B-04 and make the connection after White saves the stone.

I gather that your partner played and . Your partnership would probably do better if he deferred to you on strategy. That might not have prevented and , but it should have led him to push through with .

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I find this kind of disappointing actually, as there was a time when the partner was undoubtedly much stronger than me and I could look forward to learning something in every game. Now, when I thought there was more to learn, I find there isn't...

Well, if his strategy is not so strong, then there are other parts of his game that are. That's so for a lot of players, especially these days when strategy is deprecated.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.