Hello,

I'm quite interested in walls.

I'm a bit curious on what you may say about them.

Well, I know, it's a quite open question... but I like to be surprised, so that would be nice if you can just tell me one thing that you may consider worth to know about walls ...
Thx

_________________
Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

Walls have ears but they don't have eyes, so I take particular joy in killing them; e.g.

Wall are a special case of thickness, i.e., assess their connection and life statuses and potential for creating territory.

really ? I understand what is an eye (fortunately)... but what do you call "ears" for a wall ?

_________________
Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

Good walls exert a special kind of influence called "thickness" - which means the wall is "powerful" or "strong."

There is a good rule about using walls that says "do not use thickness to make territory." A wall is not useful as a border of an area of territory. It actually makes you over-concentrated to have all those stones making points in the center of the board. Instead, use thickness to attack.

The idea of killing a wall is usually futile because a good wall is thick not only because it is large but because it has a lot of potential for eye shape. The reason the 3-3 invasion joseki is seen as dubious in the opening of the game is because the thickness the other player gains on the outside is worth more on an open board than the territory on the inside. This wall is almost impossible to kill because its cuts are defensible and it has good eye shape.

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

Something I picked up from Takagawa.

Some walls need extensions, some don't. Walls with eye shape or good eye potential do not need extensions. Walls without good eye potential do.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

We say the same in french ... "les murs ont des oreilles", I was too focused on go terminology
BTW I like your game you very much !


I just saw that... something like this I suppose.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ | . . . , . . . . . ,
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X . 4 . . . . .
$$ | . O X 3 7 8 . . . .
$$ | . O X 1 2 9 0 . . .
$$ | . . O X 5 . . . . ,
$$ | . . O X 6 X . . . .
$$ | . . O O X . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ --------------------[/go]

Oh... I just put extensions on nearly any wall I build, but I suppose I just waste some move then... I have to think about that.

_________________
Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

What about Great Walls? Pretty good strategy, too good in fact.

Oh, thx for mentioning that ! Actually, this GreatWall reminds me what I was doing when I first discovered go in october last year (playing against... igowin)
but that was on a 9x9 goban and it only woked for me till igowin got to level ~25kyu (in it's own ranking system)

That said, tengen is still something I'm curious about, but I will let that topic for later experimentation as I would like to undestand the basics first...

_________________
Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

This is very important. I'm still trying to learn this.

"Do not use thickness to make territory" is one of the bad proverbs designed to keep kyu players kyu players. It should be: "Use thickness / influence for making territory, creating thickness / influence elsewhere, attacking, defending, creating / exploiting weaknesses, eliminating weaknesses, creating options, creating strategic choices or etc."

In other words the proverb should be "Use thickness!"

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Use thickness to its full potential!

It's helpful to have a wall when you invade. You'll have something to run to.

I often hear about "Don't use walls to make territory", and I think this proverb is slightly wrong. I mean, it is a good broad advice, but the cases when it's wrong are a bit difficult to tell from when the proverb is right.

The fundamental reason people advise against making territory with walls is that it's pretty easy to end up wasting too many stones on too few points of territory. However, wall does need eyes just like any other group, so you kinda end up in a situation where you don't want to use walls to make territory, but you want to use walls to secure two points(the eyes you need to live). So you kinda struggle to utilize your wall as much as possible while still retaining the eye potential.



Watch the top left before move 50. That's kinda the thing, the large territory along the top side was merely a threat, but I made the eyes in the corner. Seems a little backwards, but this way W needs to spend many moves trying to reduce my potential, while I get to make eyes while reducing. That enables me to keep tempo of the game to myself.

If your wall turns into a dragon, that's usually very problematic. You don't want that to happen, but you also don't really want to make more territory with your wall than is needed for eyes, because you would like for the territory to happen on the outside. For this reason it's kind of a balancing act, you want opponent to spend many moves near your wall and play on the outside, but you also don't want to be attacked, so in preparation for that, your wall may end up needing very modest-looking extensions or such to make the wall actually scary(because after getting eyes, you don't need to be afraid). Large extensions are rather pointless because they are easier to attack and opponent playing on the other side of them is further away from your wall, that is, safer, for which reason the proverb "don't make territory with influence" is a good tip, but it's also a bit incomplete.

@StlenVlr
Thanks for the game and advices ! I really enjoyed watching it, even if it's level is way ahead of what I can do...
moves like still scary me... so few space to live after seems so easy when I'm just looking, and so hard when it's my turn to play...

_________________
Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

After your white can atari your stone from two sides in order to try to escape either to the top or the right, which may cause some confusion. Therefore I would use to squeeze white and capture it cleanly on (a) afterwards:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc on
$$ | . . . , . . . . . ,
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X 0 4 . . . . .
$$ | . O X 3 7 8 . . . .
$$ | . O X 1 2 9 a . . .
$$ | . . O X 5 . . . . ,
$$ | . . O X 6 X . . . .
$$ | . . O O X . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ --------------------[/go]

On the other hand, I would simply set up a loose ladder with which looks less complicated:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ | . . . , . . . . . ,
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X . . . . . . .
$$ | . O X . 2 . . . . .
$$ | . O X 1 5 6 . . . .
$$ | . . O X 3 . . . . ,
$$ | . . O X 4 X . . . .
$$ | . . O O X . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ --------------------[/go]

White gets nothing unless he has some helping stones nearby...

Edit: Some correction on my first comment

That's right, I like your better then mine !



This is one of the things I need to improve, staying with simple sequences that I can keep it under control...
I often tend to fall in complex senarios when there are simpler (and often better) alternatives ...

_________________
Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216