This post was prompted by a thread where a beginner asked for advice on how to play an influence game. As remarked there, it may be a worthy goal, but it's a difficult thing to do. Put prosaically, it's like saying "If I get a lot of soil, how do I make a pretty garden?" Even if you are astute enough to get good soil and learn its characteristics, getting roses to grow and weeds to wither can be a challenge. To get a garden that is the delight for the eye all year round is definitely a major challenge.

Turning the loam of influence stones into fecund shapes that bear territory is just as hard, even for pros. That brings me to my new tool to ease the burden - the asfi.

As readers of my books of games commentaries will know, I like on occasion to act as a cicerone and highlight concepts that are poorly known in the west. One that I gave some attention to in the Shuei books was the very common concept of ""width"" or 広さ, which is not a million miles away from the concept of influence. I put the double double quotes because "width" is misleading, even if it's what the dictionaries say. In fact, in its go sense, it has to be explained to Japanese people, too.

Because it is such a common word in pro usage it has appeared in lots of commentaries, and you will have come across it often, almost certainly as "wide", though I have sometimes tried to force a distinction by using "broad". But I have noticed that very many players see it literally as referring to wide extensions, or areas where wide extensions can be made. Since very common pro advice is to play in the ""widest"" area in the opening and early middle game, this misunderstanding can have major misconsequences.

In fact, while the area you are being advised to play in can be visually the widest, it often isn't, and for examples of that I will repeat my advice for all westerners interested in advanced strategy to get hold of the books and especially the magazine articles of Kobayashi Satoru. Apart from the fact that he has an inherently lucid style, you may recall that he had an enforced break of a year from tournament go, and he spent that fruitfully and Heinekenly for us in writings that reached parts others pros don't.

I won't give examples here, as I really want to focus on something of interest to more advanced players, but what I will say is that, in trying to encapsulate what he said about 広さ, I concluded that there is no simple translation and so I came up with Areas of Significant Future Interest. These are where you are supposed to play.

Every part of ASFI was chosen with considerable care. First, area. This has to do with the direction of play, but as too many amateurs try to focus on the precise move to play (the Japanese direction is actually to do with stones or groups rather than point to play), 'area' is the first step in widening their vision (pun intended). It has to be 'significant' to make it worth playing, but not necessarily 'biggest'. Although other factors can be adduced, the simplest way to decide on significance is to ask whether it immediately concerns both players and other areas. Futurity is important, which is another reason why biggest may not be best. We are talking about making investments. As to how far in the future we look, well that depends how strong you are, of course. 'Interest' is another way of stressing the idea of futurity and investment and again downplaying the idea of grabbing cash now.

We can easily tie this back to the original Japanese if we note that another way of saying 広い(hiroi) in our sense is 手広い (tebiroi), which would perhaps usually be translated more abstractly as something like 'extensive' rather than simply 'wide', but the go sense can be captured by picking up on the word 手 (move), and so we can render 手広い as meaning 'having a wide range of moves'.

But what does this mean in practical terms, and where does Shuei come in to it?

Prior to New Fuseki in the 1930s, when there was no komi, go was essentially a battle between a stolid Black and an adventurous White. Although White was trying to create ASFIs, Black was just as quickly shutting him down, and White responded by taking risks, and so we ended up with the still major concept of amashi by White. Shuei, who reached the stage where he never had to take Black again, was obviously a master of amashi, but he took it further. Instead of being satisfied with rope-a-dope tactics that left Black overconcentrated, he took amashi to a high strategic level, essentially creating Areas of Significant Future Interest that were so subtle that Black failed to spot them and shut them down. The usual way the results of this were described was to call Shuei a master of miai, which was true enough, but undersold him. It took the likes of Go Seigen to see deeper. He was inspired by Shuei when he started experimenting with New Fuseki.

But the main impulse in the evolution of go strategy at that time was the increasing use of komi. Pros began to realise that Black could no longer rely on a lockdown. He had to learn to think about the future, too, and so after the faddish part of New Fuseki died down games began to be played in a style where both players looked to play in an ASFI. (They also learned how to create ASFIs but for us toddling amateurs let us learn to walk properly first). This led to games that are very hard to understand, and this notion of the ASFI is still dominant today - though perhaps modern games are even harder to understand because the 'future' element is even more extended.

You can always tell when a game features an ASFI in a major way because even the pro commentary results in diagrams that are just as hard to understand as the game (conceptually, if not tactically).

The following example, which features the sanrensei influence stones of interest to the original poster, shows a rather amateurish or arty-farty arrangement by White.



In fact, White was Kitani Minoru in a 1935 game and the triangled move he had just played in an ASFI won considerable praise. The tactical sequences that result are easy to enough to understand in themselves, but are much harder to predict because the outcome is going to be decided on how they impact on other ASFIs, on the right and in the centre. There is another ASFI looming in the lower right, but nothing on the left side even though visually that may look like the widest area.

Black was Go Seigen, and, just in passing, there is some interest at the moment in the games of Wang Chenxing because she is playing a New Fuseki-ish style inspired, she says, by Go. But the first two moves by White, i.e. Kitani, in this game, at the 6-4 and 5-4 points look to me much more like her specific inspiration. As she is Chinese I suppose it's more natural to cite a fellow Chinese. And of course Go genuinely was inspirational in many ways.

The next diagram, if you follow it through, will show how the game proceeded and also, I hope, justify my remark that in such games the sequences are just as hard to understand even after you've seen them as before they even occur.



In the resulting position, where White was deemed to have succeeded cleverly, it is my submission that an amateur could easily make a strong case for questioning White's play: (1) His slide stone has been cut off (mochikomi?); (2) he has solidified Black at the top and given him a route out to the centre in the upper right; (3) White has a heavy, ugly group and it looks as if both this and the stones on the right side are ripe for a splitting attack.

In fact this assessment is flawed because White's slide stone is not cut off, Black is not solid, and White's stones on the right are essentially uncapturable. And all that really only becomes clear after you see how the game proceeds and play merges into other ASFIs.

If you accept that White has indeed done well but wonder then why a player as distinguished as Go Seigen allowed it, the most significant variation is shown below, where a ko develops but the threat balance favours White.



The full game is given below (Kitani won). Much of it is very difficult, but if the concept of ASFI interests you as a way-in, you may wish to ponder why the wide-open lower left was left for so long (it has in part to do with not making White strong in the centre, so it's an area of significant interest to White only for much of the time).

I hope at least this discursion will show that the depths of go are even deeper than most of imagine, and that it is no surprise that playing an influence game is not easy. But I will also have to keep my fingers crossed that you don't find that notion too depressing!

I am a big John Fairbairn fan - whenever I see a new writing of his, I view it as a chance to learn something. That said, I have a few quibbles with this post.

First, it was prompted by another post (in the Beginners Forum I believe), in which a double digit kyu player asks about using influence. My hunch is that someone at that level could be referring to many different things when talking about influence, and it is worth verifying they we understand what they are asking about.

Second, trying to communicate dense concepts by creating an acronym (ASFI) that can be put on a 3x5 card for future reference is probably too ambitious.

Third, the game used as an example (Go Seigen vs. Kitani Minoru) is pretty complicated. In one sentence, the influence of black's sanrensei is discussed, yet a few sentences later, the high points played by white are discussed as well. It seems each player is trying to counteract the other's potential spheres of influence, and then a complicated fight breaks out. I wonder if it is easier to make the point with (relatively) modern players that are known for their dedication to certain styles of play. For example, games of Takemiya Masaki vs. Kobayashi Koichi.

Fourth, it is often easiest to describe what something is by contrasting it with what it is not. Wonderful examples can be shown in games where a player chooses influence over territory, or influence over thickness, that subtly but effectively open people's eyes to the concept of influence.

Fifth, it must be mentioned that there are influence oriented players that play 3-4 point openings. Go is a deep game, and in most cases, it is a mistake to say our first few moves determine the nature of the game that follows.

Just my two cents...

It is probably "too ambitious", generally, for most amateurs to try to tap into pro thinking.

I'm interested, though. How can be a good play? These are heavy, non-cutting stones.

In another thread, I was perhaps groping after a related concept. I was contemplating adding to it with a comment about there being a book to write about "pulling out stones", at good amateur level.

Is ASFI anything different from what I call "important region"?

I would love to see such a book.