Is there a secret to forcing your opponent to make more weak groups?

I remember when I started playing online I was terrified and angered by invasions, but now I feel the opposite.

I cherish them, like gifts.

It feels like a silly question but, is there a different way I can play that would induce my opponent to make more small attackable groups?

Other people will have other ideas for sure, but here's one suggestion, one way to think about it:

If you're playing a pro, even game, for all practical purposes, at our levels,
you can assume the pro will have no weak groups..., or, occasionally, maybe there will be weak groups on the board.
What are you going to do?

If you're playing a pro, in a high handi game (say, 9 stones), we can reasonably assume W will have at least one weak group.
What are you going to do?

If you're playing someone around your own level, even game, there may or may not be weak groups on the board --
both your own, and your opponent's -- same question: What are you going to do?

To all 3 questions, here's one idea: (not the only one, but just a suggestion)

If you make large, loose frameworks then probably your opponent will have to invade them to stop you getting too much territory. But only probably. They might make their own large moyo too, and if theirs is half a point bigger than yours (taking into account the komi) then they don't need to invade. The positional judgement of such competing moyo games is particularly difficult (at least for me).

That's my way.

I'm used to play constantly attacking weak groups, so when there aren't, the only solution I've found is to make larger and larger frameworks until my opponent finally decides to invade.

It only works as expected against players close to my rank, though:
- Against much weaker players they often just accept the huge frameworks, not knowing that they are not reasonable, and then lose without a fight.
- Against much stronger players (which are usually the ones who don't make weak groups), they invade and then refuse to die.


[PS: If someone has suggestions about how to play fuseki to systematically fall into that kind of game, I'm open to suggestions. ]

It's such a cliche, but .... You should not (generally) base your game plan on needing to kill the invasion to win. Attack to profit, solidifying other parts of your moyo, building strength so that later you can invade their positions etc.

I know that and I think it's my next big step. However it's not an easy one. I see it as a double line:

A- Attack to go for the kill and be harmed if it doesn't die.
B- Attack in a way that keeps the group weak but gives you some benefit.
C- Attack in a way that gives you some benefit but once the attack is answered, the group will no longer be weak.

A is the mistake I try to avoid. C is what I get when I really make an effort to avoid A. B is what I try to achieve but it's simply too hard.

The problem with falling to C is that weak groups stop being weak, thus the need to have more. Even if I only profit once or twice from each, if the opponent creates enough weak groups the total profit is enough to compensate my blunders and give me victory.

I'm trying to play a game where I don't make the broken shapes and I don't push from behind so I can post it for review. But in all my games I'm guilty of this at least once.

I just wanted to mention this because I don't know if it's you or another poster that's constantly pointing out this mistakes in reviews. But it always makes me think about it happening in my game.

But yeah, I feel like if I were to post a game with this mistakes it would be like showing up to a party with mustard on my shirt.



I'm doing okay with moyo vs moyo, at least at my level. I feel like I have an easy time finding the right border to play on that helps defend weaknesses. (Or my opponents are being to lenient and following me around)

The reason I asked was because the small group fighting games seem much more exciting.

As an update after this thread (as if like magic) I've gotten into more fights with small groups. Instead of making looser frameworks I started making more solid groups of stones around the board to help my invasions. It makes me a little worried because it's been a large number of games since i've made a capping play or shoulder hit and now I'm going to get rusty on that

That's one phase, like seeing ataris. Later, you learn to recognize when it's OK, or even good, to have a broken shape or to push from behind. Go is difficult.

It reminds me of a Guo Juan lecture. She taught us not to push from behind. Later she did our game reviews and told me to push from behind in the game.

The most important proverb... don't follow proverbs all the time.

It doesn't matter how ugly a move is if it works, e.g. last diagram in viewtopic.php?p=106708#p106708