1. EXTEND - this is a fancy way of saying "put a stone next to another one". Look at the situation below - you are playing black. If you play somewhere else on the board, white could add another stone around this one and put it in atari. If that happened you could still keep this stone alive by EXTENDING. But why wait? This is a perfect time to foil white's plans and extend before you are in atari.
If you decide to extend before you are in atari you have 2 options of where to play. If you wait, the third stone white plays will leave you only 1 way to extend, and a good opponent will make sure that you are stuck extending in the direction that is worst for you. So don't wait! Look at the rest of the board and extend in a helpful direction - towards some of your other stones maybe. Here black extends to the right:
2. DIAGONAL - this move appears less solid than extending. But the truth is it is a great move. The reason is it has a quality called "miai" (MEE-EYE). Miai means 2 equally good options exist - when your opponent takes one you take the other. If you look at the diagram below you can see that white could move in at the upper right or the bottom left. You can still connect these stones by taking whichever spot white leaves open!
3. ONE POINT JUMP - This is a great move for getting around the board quickly. If your opponent moves right between these stones to try to break them apart, you can instantly put them in atari!
4. KNIGHT'S MOVE - Here is an even faster way to move around the board. If you look at this and imagine adding a third stone between these two to start connecting them, you will see you have an extension and a diagonal move together.
The above moves are all strong and will serve you well throughout you GO career. Fire up a computer GO 9x9 game and try them out!
1 comment:
keep up the good work mate.
this is a realy great and simple article that i wont hesitate to point my begginer friends towards.
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