Reducing your opponents moyo or building up your own?

Pippen · #1

I am interested in the board situation after move 22:

1. Did I do a good job as black up to now?
2. What is the best move to play now?

When you look at my game you may see that I sucked to deal with this white moyo.

Uberdude · #2

j13, Shuko style, is my instinct.

You have played on 3 sides of the board, he only 1. You don't need to reduce to win and doing so will just ruin your own moyo potential.

He answered your reduction very passively, he can play much more strongly and your group should be weak and even if it survives white will get good thickness that ruins your moyo. The reduction is inconsistent with your play at g15 which gave white a strong wall. If you want to play d10 at some point then play g15 as an extension on the top side rather than strengthening white, and then later you can reduce.

After c9 you have a golden opportunity to correct your mistake and tenuki. You can sacrifice those 3 stones, treating them as kikashi stones which white answered submissively (later if he had more outside stones he would play more agressively). Play j13, q10, whatever big move you like and let white spend several moves to capture the bait if he really wants to.

Pippen · #3

Thx, that was really enlightning, esp. the "bait-tactic".

Uberdude · #4

Pippen wrote:

Thx, that was really enlightning, esp. the "bait-tactic".

Maybe I thought of that because I recently re-read 'Kamakura' (JF's book on Go vs Kitani match) and in 2 of those games Go Seigen leaves some bait. The timing of when to go for the bait is very interesting (indeed in one Sakata thought Kitani went for it too early).

Bill Spight · #5

Basically in agreement with Uberdude.

Pippen · #6

Thank you too, Bill, nice commentary where I learned a lot from.

The basic ideas I think I learned from Überdude and Bill:

1. If you opponent has a one-sided framework then be aware if you approach him closely because he can get stronger pretty quickly. Be aware of a distant-attack strategy (like Bill shows in his variations).
2. Do not be too greedy and jump into a moyo to live. Rather build up your own moyo or invade but only to create aji and to let you opponent worry to use many stones to kill it while you take advantage, like I should have treated my three invasion stones that way.

Reducing your opponents moyo or building up your own?

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