Concepts

Concepts Index | GoGoD | New In Go

The following game illustrates one of the most famous examples of playing amashi strategy.

This was a no-komi game. White was Yasui Chitoku. His opponent was Honinbo Jowa, in 1820. Although Jowa went on to win by 2 points, it was considered a marvellous feat by Chitoku to make the game so close against such a strong opponent. If only he had got it down to a 1-point loss he could have called it a "lifetime masterpiece", following the usual tradition.

The first element in White's strategy is move 26. Normally White would like to rush to make a corner enclosure at 27 or A (and then Black would force with Black 26, White B), but low moves such as 26 were part of Chitoku's style. In any case, he did not want to be burdened with a floating group. A key factor when playing an amashi strategy is that you do not have any weak groups. Your opponent is going to be like waves dashing themselves on your rocks.

White 28 is the next element in the strategy. Normally this would be considered bad, allowing Black to press him down in to a low position (which he does, with Black 29 to White 36. Standard thinking would be to play White 28 at 29 to prevent that. But if White does that here, Black will play at 28, which works well with his lower-left framework. But now this framework, which was meant to be Black's pride and joy - he has spent four moves on it, after all - is being seriously undermined by both White 26 and 28, and as these belong to already safe White groups, Black has little going for him in the lower left.

He does have a wall in the lower right, but Chitoku has already seen that that is not as promising as it looks.

Black has two good points on the right - 37 and 38. But by the same token, so does White. Black chose 37 because he could not tolerate White's wall created by Black 38, White 37, Black A, White B, Black C, White D. Black E, White F, Black 41, White G, Black H, White I, Black J. The reason he cannot tolerate it is that now White can play K. Black can live with L but that has little impact on White, and certainly none on the imposing centre domain White has created.

So Black 37 is essentially forced, but White gets to 38 (which has room for a two-space extension either way, as well as a route to the centre) and suddenly Black's wall in the lower right looks more like a picket fence. It is of so little threat to White that he decides to ignore Black 41 and with 42 continues sapping operations against the Black fortress in the lower left.

At this stage, Chitoku has played only three of his 21 moves on the fourth line or higher, and has even played five on the supposed "second line of defeat". But Black has played 11 of his 21 moves on the fourth line or higher, yet it can hardly be said that he controls the centre. Remarkably, though, Jowa (Black) managed to find a strategy to eke out a meagre win, and he too avoided the usual channels - rather than go all out to swallow up the small fry of White 38, he went for the big fish of White's group on the left which has only the merest hint of a weakness, but one that Jowa managed to exploit.

The full game in sgf form: