White has kept his distance, pending black's using, or not using, his turn-order prerogative. You don't want to be surprised by a tactical attack by growth
and a single placement in the same turn.
At the same time, preventing black from doing so by making a growing move with white, would hand over the initiative to black, and three white 2-groups isn't quite enough compensation for that in this position (I think), so I moved
to bear down on
a bit.
The alternative, terminating black's turn-order prerogative, would have been to
grow, for instance:
- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$Wcm1
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . |
$$ | . . . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1 . . . |
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . , 6 . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]
This would give black the initiative in terms of being the player to move with an equal number of groups on the board.
This initiative allows a player to start growing, later on, with the opponent lagging behind. At the same time the opponent cannot start growing without allowing the player who has the initiative an extra group to grow at.