What is honte? Here's Hane Naoki's explanation

[Tami]

Hane Naoki has published a really superb book about honte, called 本手の打ち方が分かる本 (How to Understand Honte), on MyCom.

I will review it when I have finished reading the last few pages, but with this post I am going to offer a translation of one page, because it's probably one of the easiest-to-grasp explanations of what "honte" means you will find anywhere.

In a Nutshell
Honte is to make your own stones thick, and furthermore to have another move to aim at.

* It is often the vital point for shape
* It is to capture the stone in a ladder promptly if it would cause trouble by running away
* If your opponent does not defend, put your aim into action

On making a single move you

1) Repair your defect
2) And take aim. Both of these are very important.

As for counterfeit honte plays,

1) They are moves without a follow-up aim, and unnecessary moves (these are "lukewarm")
2) No matter how much they hold on to sente, if moves leave behind something for the opponent to aim at, they are only a makeshift. If such moves do nothing more than take sente, then if you would get sente back anyway, you would be better off playing honte in the first place.

The original Japanese is

まとめ

＊本手とは・・・自分を厚くして、なおかつ次の狙いがある手

*形の急所になることも多い
*逃げられて困るシチョウは早く抜く
*相手は守らなかったら、狙いを実行

一手かける以上、

（１）自分のキズを守る
（２）次に狙いがあるの両方が当てはまることが大事。

＊本手に似て非なるもの・・・

（１）狙いがない手、必要のない守りは「ぬるい」
（２）いくら先手で守っても、まだ狙いが残っていては、「間に合わせ」。先手は取るに越したことはないが、結局手が戻るなら、最初から本手を打つことが得策。

As this is only a short quotation, I think it should be okay to use it here, but if anybody thinks it is too long, please let me know. Hopefully, this should motivate you to buy the book - not only does Hane explain very well what honte is, and (crucially) what it is not, but he also provides a lot of very well chosen examples.

This is not the same book as The Way of Creating a Thick and Strong Game. In due course, I shall be interested in translating go books...

[p2501]

Maybe Anders Kierulf can mediate / arrange something. Best of luck!

[snorri]

In due course, I shall be interested in translating go books...

I certainly hope that can happen. I've really been enjoying your selections! You have a good eye for what's interesting.

[Jedo]

Interesting trying to read the japanese, I learned some new go kanji/vocab.