Sunday, May 21, 2006

Big Center Moyos

It was Tokimaru who made me aware of Takemiya Masaki (9P). In one of our first matches, he spoke of trying to play a "cosmic style" and I looked it up. An example of this style is to build a large framework in the center of the board while one's opponent takes all of the corners.

This 1974 game between Cho Chikun (B) and Yoshio Ishida (W)
illustrates this "big moyo" style.


In two of my recent games, I found myself unable to claim the corners and won by taking large center moyos. It very much turns the old proverb, "If you lose all four corners, resign", on its head.

Toshiro Kageyama
also seems to understand that the proverb is false. In page 106 of Lessons in The Fundamentals of Go, he writes:

Actually, when one side has given up all four corners he (the other side) usually has a good thick game; the only reason he loses is that he does not know how to use his thick outer walls.

Moderator on GoDiscussions.com

Don asked malweth and I to help out as a volunteer moderators on GoDiscussions.com and we both accepted.

Thus far, I've only had to take two actions; deleting spam threads. Funny how some folks will go through all the trouble of registering with a forum just to spam it. There must be good money (or great desperation) in spamming.


Fuseki Quiz 6/20

Black to play. Should you be concerned about White's large area
on the lower side?
I chose "A".



Scoring of Last Weekend's Fuseki Quiz 5/20

  • A = 10, Because White is strong in both the upper and lower left corners, a two-point extension to C12 is the most concise and stead way to play. Black will be able to secure a position on the left side no matter from which direction White attacks.
  • B = 8
  • C = 6
  • D = 4
  • E = 2


In other news


One of you had suggested the movie, Akeelah and The Bee, to me. The Chiyo-clan watched and enjoyed it last weekend. Laurence Fishburne (aka Morpheus in The Matrix) was the producer and co-starred as Dr. Larabee.

ChiyoChan liked this movie since she herself had made it to the regional finals for the Scripps National Spelling Bee. It inspired her to play Scrabble again; and she recently beat me in four games in a row.

    6 Comments:

    At 12:46 AM, May 22, 2006, Blogger Russ Williams said...

    "If you lose all four corners, resign"

    I've more often heard a variation that includes the notion that losing all four corners could be very good or very bad: "If one player has all four corners, then somebody should resign."

     
    At 10:04 AM, May 22, 2006, Anonymous Anonymous said...

    I enjoy moyo games as both white and black. For a while, if black was leaning towards the orthodox fuseki I would jump in and wedge right away as white, but I've tried a white sanrensei instead and had some promising, if inconclusive, results. The influence you get from a sanrensei helps invasions and even gentle reductions of a territorial framework.

    4-4 frameworks are difficult to manage and can instead turn into a brutal fighting game, but in any case moyo games are very exciting in my opinion.

    If I had a style lately, it would be "fast," not in terms of the time between stones but in terms of development.

    And it is nice to see you moving up in rating still! If I'm not careful you'll catch up to me. ;)

     
    At 9:57 AM, May 24, 2006, Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Thank you for your blog. I love reading about your GO discoveries and idea. Especially the Cosmic GO.

    I downloaded some SGF files of Takemiya Masaki from GObase.org. And WOW! It blew my mind.

    Thanks for shining a light on that for me.

     
    At 9:15 PM, May 24, 2006, Blogger ChiyoDad said...

    Hello russ, erislover and kendrick!

    I've found moyo games to be very interesting and I do like the faster development.

    I've been looking over some of the Korean styles of playing the sanrensei and I might try to experiment with them in the future.

    Thanks for the compliment on my rank but it still needs some proving. At least I can say that I'm making some progress!

    Best Regards,
    - ChiyoDad

     
    At 7:11 AM, May 26, 2006, Blogger Adam said...

    I'm with you on this one Chiyo - I say A is the way to go. Follow it by chasing the white upper left stones as a means to develop a formation on the top. Play smart and you'll be able to get something out of that.

    I've seen the cosmic go book mentioned here and there, I didn't realize it was equated to 'give the corners for a big central moyo'. I've ended up playing some games like that, as I face various problems. I'd be interested to hear what your opinion of the literature surrounding this style is, if you do more reading on it.

    It makes me think of "hyper-modern" chess style. Or at least, what my chess friends have told me is hyper-modern.

     
    At 11:12 PM, May 28, 2006, Blogger ChiyoDad said...

    Hello JMP and adam!

    As it turned out, "A" was a good move but only after playing "C" to reduce the power of White's wall.

    I think there are only three English books out there that deal with Takemiya's style. I'll need to add them to the GoDiscussions.com Product Database.

     

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