Aloha, my friends ...

Nice to see that we have a new, most importantly: working, forum here. Great!

Well, I was just reading one of my favorite books from Cho Huy-hyeon, Lectures on Go Techniques. He discusses about white aproaching black's high chinese opening and black answering with a forceful pincer. If now white attaches to the 3-4 stone and black plays 1 as in the following diagram, Cho's comment is this:

White forces with 2 to 8 and controls the corner with 10. Even though black captures one stone, white get's both profit and influence. This is bad for black.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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

I was surprised to read this, because in my opinion, black is not bad - for two reasons:

His Q11 stone is exactly at the position where white would like to have a stone herself and he also has sente!

What do you think?

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Stay out of my territory! (W. White, aka Heisenberg)

I don't think black is too bad. But I feel like white's influence affects a greater part of the board than black. White may have also secured more territory in the corner, but I'm less sure about that.

I think q11 is a bit too close actually - white can forcefully pincer it without having to worry about his corner group. K16 also seems a bit overconcentrated. However, my own judgment must be off as well - I wouldn't mind being black here. Of course, I'd have to see what Cho Huy-hyeon proposes as an alternative - it could be that black can do better than this, and that is why this is a mistake.

Can any stronger players elaborate more on why this is bad for black?

_________________
We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

My initial feeling is also that the final result is not bad for Black. Perhaps I am wrong.

However, I do think that it is bad by comparison with the result after an inside hane for B1. Allowing White to sacrifice a single stone in return for both thickness and territory is not good. Perhaps that is what Cho meant.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Isn't "bad by comparison" the same as "bad for black", since he could have done something better?

That is, if the rest of the game is exactly even after the high chinese opening (which seems to be a reasonable assumption to me), and then black plays a sub-optimal sequence (which is worse by comparison to an alternative sequence), wouldn't that put black a bit behind and make it "bad for black"?

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be immersed

I think that makes sense. Not being very strong, this is some of the hardest things for me to figure out. I don't like to stress myself out too much over it, though. Recently saw part of a lecture from Shyghost where he talks briefly about the sayings "this move is wrong" or "this is the wrong move", since in plenty of cases it's an okay move and there just happens to be a better move. Being at the level I'm at, this gives me a little comfort so I don't constantly have to stress over making "wrong" moves (though I still make plenty of very wrong moves... ).

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KGS: schultz [?].

Oh, good! Nested quotes.

I suspect that White's attachment (the previous move) is not good. OTOH, what is good after the pincer? Maybe the real problem is White's approach. (IIRC, Go Seigen does not like it. He prefers the one space approach.)

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I see. So you mean that the overall board position is not bad for black because of the white move, but black didn't do as well as he could do (I think).

_________________
be immersed

"It is not a move, even the best move, that we seek, but a realizable plan."

-- E. A. Znosko-Borovski, about chess

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Well, if I am right that Black made a bad move but did not get a bad result, then White must have made an inferior move, too.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Yeah, I was trying to clarify your meaning, because of a phrase that seems somewhat ambiguous to me. If "Black made a bad move", I'm inclined to think that saying "This is bad for black" is accurate. But it depends on what context you're talking about when you say "bad", I think.

It's hard to tell what the context is from the short text that's given.

_________________
be immersed

Thanks, Bill - that is what I was looking for.

The idea of a good position for black which is called 'bad' because of a previous wrong move by white and thus possibility for black to achieve something even better is interesting.

However, in the book, the white Q16 attachment is mentioned as a good choice for white here. The following moves are these:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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

Comment: 'White ends up with the right side and Black controls the top. This result is even for both sides.'

So I am still having problems with the assessment that 'Black is bad' in the other variation. Anybody else?

_________________
Stay out of my territory! (W. White, aka Heisenberg)

In my opinion this 'bad for black' refers to the original idea of the Chinese-Fuseki.

Black plays this way to build a sphere of influence, which White has to reduce so that Black can attack White and take profit.

Losing the entire corner to White, giving him power facing his now loose and weak Shimari-stone, breaks up everything the Chinese is about (in my opinion : )). No power, no influence, no targets.
If you look at the second diagram it is clear to see, that now Black still has his influence, can still attack White on both sides and is connected to his loose-Shimari.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

The result doesn't look very bad for black. However, it seems to go against the spirit of the Chinese opening, which is to develop the right side. Also, the Q11 stone looks a bit out of place now.

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My homepages: http://senseis.xmp.net/?Unkx80 and http://yeefan.sg/.

kerby, i talked about something similar to this before in gd.
many times in go you can not say this is good this is bad.
oriental people have different concept. this feels good this feels bad.
Example: it is similar in medicine. chinese medicine claims that there are flowing of chi in our body.
never been proved my modern medicine but many believe it to be true.
so to sum it all up. do not get caught up in saying some move is good or bad.
go has too many variations for man to say good or bad.

_________________
"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

Well, I guess I am not as good as Cho.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

You can compare the two final diagrams. If you like the second one for black more than the first one, I think you can say that the first one is bad for black. The book seems to say, "if you do this second sequence, black and white are equal". So it comes down to seeing if you prefer the second diagram you posted to the first: if you like an "even" position better than position X for black, position X must be bad for black (from your perspective).

So the question is, do you prefer the second diagram to the first?

_________________
be immersed

I don't know how useful it is to equate "not the best possible position" with "bad." Things probably get "bad" for both players about 12 moves into the game .

I don't get it, magicwand. Isn't this what you're doing when you say something like, "he made a mistake. I'm ahead, now." in a Malkovich game?

Certainly there are tough situations where it's hard to say who is ahead, but isn't it good to make an attempt to analyze the situation?

_________________
be immersed

I think that's the pros' attitude: Always try to find the best possible move. "Not bad" is simply not good enough.

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To sig or not to sig, that is the question.