Concept notes

Bad Moves 悪手

Kita Fumiko was an exceptionally strong female player who held her own with the men in the early 20th century. She was also famed as a teacher. In a 1923 article for the magazine of the new but ephemeral Chuo Ki-in (it became the nucleus of the Nihon Ki-in the following year), she wrote the best description of bad moves we have seen.

She begins by saying that she is not trying to make a comprehensive and systematic list, but is just following her brush as ideas pop into her head. We may infer safely from that that it is as close to a comprehensive list as we might get.

She says she is itemising those terms that pros use in reviewing their own games. To them, bad moves are just a sub-category of moves that can be criticised. Probably it's a category that pros rarely have to use of themselves, the others being more pertinent.

At any rate, the top level categories, with her definitions, are:

• Thank-you moves 無用の着手
  Moves which unnecessarily eliminate future aji, or moves that repair the opponent's defects
• Non-urgent moves 不急の着手
  Moves that are too early or too small
• Slack moves 緩慢の着手
  Moves which are not appropriate to the situation
• Low-profit moves 不利の着手
  Mistaking the small for the large and not taking the full profit available
• Unreasonable moves 無理なる手
  This is another favourite term of translators which is not wrong but often seems curiously meaningless without explanation. As Kita defines them, these are moves that try to capture uncapturable groups, or to kill unkillable groups.
• Bad moves 悪手

Kita adds that there is another category that could possibly be included. These are moves which are 面白くない. This is a phrase which is consistently mistranslated in western go texts, as "not interesting," following the everyday meaning. In fact it is technical term in go and the meaning, according to Kita, is moves "which cannot be deemed satisfactory." As she remarks, that is perhaps too general to be useful in her list. She also suggests "slack moves", "non-urgent moves" and "thank-you moves" are a bit different in that they may not be bad moves in themselves, but they do have a common characteristic of allowing the opponent to play a severe move, and generally they give up sente.

Bad moves are further divided into two distinct sets:

Type 1

• Bad-shape moves - moves that lead to overconcentration
• Moves that diminish the effect of one's own stones already played
• Moves that totally negate the effect of one's own stones already played
• Moves that make one's good moves bad
• Moves that make the opponent's bad moves good

Type 2

• Moves that deprive one's own stones of ways to live
• Moves that give life to killable enemy stones
• Moves that put one's own stones in danger
• Moves that allow enemy stones to feel safe
• Moves that overlook a large gain
• Moves that lead to self-harm (through inattentiveness or greed)

A possible way to use this list is to assume that virtually every one of your own moves is bad, and then to classify it as above. Then find a better move that does not fail this test.

Useful proverbs

• Atari, atari no hebo go kana - Atari after atari is sure to be bad play
• Tokkurigata wa korigatachi - The sake-bottle shape leads to overconcentration
• Ikken tobi wa akushu nashi - A one-space jump is never a bad move
• Kikashi to akushu wa kami hitoe - The difference between a forcing move and a bad move is paper thin
• Kuruma no atooshi hebogo no mihon - Pushing from behind exemplifies duffer's go
• Keima no tsukidashi zokushu nari - Pushing into the knight's move is vulgar play
• Nozoki ni akushu nari - Peeping is often bad
• Bad moves and good moves are bedfellows

© John Fairbairn & T Mark Hall (GoGoD), London 2008.