Block on the widest side

Written by alejo on February 24th, 2007

This concept seems easy to understand and to apply into real games, but constantly I find these blunders on my games against other players and on others games.
The basic example is a response to a 3-3 invasion, you always ask yourself: where should I block? The answer is: on the one with the biggest size and the one with most probabilities of turning into your points at the end of the game.

But it also applies to middlegame fights and cuts.

If white now played on J5, what would you do?

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2 Comments to “Block on the widest side”

1. Posted by some1k player, July 2nd, 2007 at 8:28 pm

I think it’s a bit unfair to yourself to blame J4 for your loss. Cause that is really not the worst mistake.

First of all K4 isn’t so super neither, it leaves a kofight after it.

Secondly, there has been a lot of both tactical and strategical errors during the game that were worse.

Imho, you didn’t lose because you had less points, but you lost because you gave a lot of points away to your opponent earlier in the game.

I’m going to give you some examples of things which are imho bigger mistakes. I hope it can be useful in a way.

Move 7 is a strange approach because it is so far away from the corner, and therefor doesn’t really have a good followup. It is a bit cramped.

And I agree that you took the corner shortly after that, because it is very big indeed. But before you did that, you exchanged a keima for white his extention. That was clearly a mistake since you sacrificed it shortly after. That exchange actually makes white his extention a free move for which you got nothing in return. So, you probably lost over 20 points there. Because C10 is big for your both.

Move 23 is the wrong side, H18 is the keypoint. again this gives away big potential because you let white seal of the center and enforce his L17 stone, which also makes the top right harder to invade. So again we are talking about giving away at least 15 points here.

Move 27 is a small tactical error. G16 is fine, cause the ladder doesn’t work. Or you could have kept the “aji” (weakness) for later.

Move 31 is a joseki error. You can attach with R17 instead, (a very popular joseki).

Next you start creating multiple weak groups, which give you a tremendous hard game. Having to protect 1 weak group is hard. Creating several close to eachother is THE way to lose a game, cause black can play moves which attack both groups at the same time. You simply should have settled the top group as fast as possible, and after that softly reduced white his influence from a distance. It’s never good to get close to influence. Moves like 65 are VERY greedy, and give away points again. Concider yourself very lucky to even make it alive :) .

After all that, you play move 101 in a high position. White has this huge powerful influence, so you must play a solid move, such as a keima instead.

Move 121 again is giving away too much, there’s a joseki for this that starts with cutting and which still gives you the lower side.

Now, about that last error, shouldn’t we just blame move 127 which is a keima and therefore cuttable. It could have been a simple jump, which makes much stronger shape either way. and move 131 fixing it up later, could have been spend in another place that way. Also, move 125: … wouldn’t it make more sense to play it around H4.

Well, it’s a good 10k game of course, I’m not saying you played bad. :) But I think we shouldn’t blame that 1 move. :)

2. Posted by Alejo, July 3rd, 2007 at 7:29 am

I’ve been checking my database and this was not a game I played, but a couple of people I keep track of. Though I recognise that sometimes I find myself playing moves like 7.

Move 23 is wrong. Yes, I totally agree.
AS for move 27, I would have played on G16, I guess just because it’s more simple.

I’m curious with move 101, you recommend to play it somewhat higher, like a keima. I wouldn’t have done that, I guess I would have played as above, keima here seems a bit unusual for me… Obviously if you are around 1k level, seems like I’ll have to get used to it.

About move 127: I hadn’t realised that one. There is a another post called “don’t keima while escaping” which talks about this too.

I selected this game because I believed 135 to be an incorrect move and wanted to show a sample of “block on the widest side” on the middle game. I could have chosen others, yes, but I thought this one was very explanatory.

By the way, just being curious, if this site is focused for players below 10k, do you find it interesting? I’m glad to have some 1k players around here, but I wasn’t expecting it…

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