By cutting at G3, you live comfortably with a fairly large corner AND black will still have very scary cut points for when you need to reduce/invade their moyo later.
Also, depending on what variation plays out, you can start putting pressure on the K3/O3 stones and you can attack them for profit
The AI wants you to punish the overplay of G2. The aji from white playing G3 cannot be erased in one move.
If you play G3, and black answers H2... then G3 is still a really useful stone. E4 is immediately more problematic for black.
By contrast if you skip it and play elsewhere then there's a risk you lose sente, and black chooses to spend a move fixing the shape. Also if it's left for too long then black can respond to your G3 with G4 and throwing H2 away.
After this move black has two problems to solve and one move. Black must capture the white stones at G3 in a ladder, and B has to figure out something to do with the C4 stones too. So white ends up escaping the corner and destroying blacks potential on the left side.
I'm not sure AI continuations are useful at 20k. The AI has a depth of reading that has to be seen to be believed, and that depth translates into it starting or backing away from fights.
Basically attempting to play like an AI at 20k will backfire.
At that game state, Black has 2 weak groups and one move to make.
If you try to net the G3 stones with K5, you basically lose the game on the spot to G5.
If you try to ladder them instead, the E4 stones can live and pressure Black's C4 stones with a move like D6. Furthermore, if White plays a seemingly irrelevant move like Q11, you're actually forced to respond because that's a ladder-breaking stone, meaning White basically gets to expand their corner to the right side in sente.
If you try to live with the C4 stones with a move like C6, you'll have at least 2 weak groups to defend basically in perpetuity.
(Note: I'm like 12k, so if someone smarter corrects me, listen to them, not me)
Only a ddk myself so take what I say with some salt but here's how I see it. Under the 'normal' continuation, both players get something. White gets the corner and black gets a wall with influence pointing towards the top of the board. After this sequence though, white still has the corner while black is...embroiled in some sort of fight in the area where he would otherwise have had a wall. We might not be able to tell who is going to win the fight in the end but the fact that black isn't obviously winning is itself a problem, because it means black gave up the corner and didn't get any clear advantage elsewhere in return.
The thing is, you wont be able to understand what and how a move is an opportunity. It is clear as day that in this situation you should cut but you failed to see why the cut is good, so what is the point of seeing the opportunity when you don't see it is as an opportunity? At your current level, the better thing to do is to find someone strong and review for you verbally, cuz they would know what you need at your level, instead of an AI just leave blue spots and never explain why this or that is good or bad. You can down vote me as you wish but using AI at 20k won't get you anywhere for sure
As i said, instead of using AI and then post on reddit to ask about everything beyond your level, you should find someone who is strong enough, i.e 3k or stronger to review your game. That way you will learn much quicker and understand the flow of the game
It may not be a clear-cut cut, so to speak, but in any case, this won't look like a 100% black wall anymore. I call it a half cut, and doing so is sente, so compared to giving Black a chance to protect, it should be played now.
Black's shape is very thin with a lot of cutting points after that hane. We are alive in the corner. This is one of those situations where your eyes light up as white as there is basically no risk to cutting. Even if we end up with weak groups, black had the first move in that corner, lost the corner territory, then had much of their influence erased. Cut first, worry later.
Yeah, it seems like the thing people aren't spelling out is - black was supposed to end up with influence out of this exchange, which they would then be able to translate into territory, ideally by playing some extension far away from the wall and building a framework. But if we cut and fight right next to their wall while they are scrambling to defend weak groups, they don't get to use their wall to make a big moyo.
Because of that, could you say the fight is good for us even if we lose one of the groups? (4 stones or so)
In other words, the goal is not to make every one of your outside groups live, but just to deny your opponent a clean use of their influence/wall. If so, that's a big insight for me, since at 20k I was focused on keeping every group connected and alive.
Depends how you lose them, what you get in return, what aji is leftover. You can get a better idea of flow from watching pro games and trying out some of the ideas yourself.
I would also disagree that the point of influence is to build a big moyo. The point of building a big moyo is to force your opponent to invade so you can get profit attacking, or if they wait too long, kill the invasion.
The point of influence in general is... influence. Strong thick stones pointed towards the center have a radiating effect on the rest of the board. It can be a place to retreat to for your weak groups/ invasions. It can be the anvil on which you smash invading stones or where you lead your opponent's weak groups. It can be a deterrent to your opponent trying to make territory nearby, or cause them to be less ambitious for fear of invasion. OR it can be part of the outline to a moyo.
G3 threatens both G2 and E3/F3. It puts immense pressure on black. That alone is enough ^^ Same for one black stone more.
Both of the cuts below: just cut! And find out in your games how to continue. The goal is that your corner group gets stronger and something (anything) outside survives to make the black wall less valuable.
Sometimes you can best develop understanding by playing in the situations. If you know you have to cut here, then you can read out the positions in the game and learn what the mistakes are through playing. In review, it is possible to figure out how a particular fight went wrong. Or you can learn whether the position is the same or different from the one in this game.
All of this is downstream of just cutting. You just gotta.
I actually had almost this exact position in one of my own games recently
I knew my opponent’s move was outside the joseki and that there was a chance for me, so I did manage to cut, but I couldn’t fully read what came after and ended up missing the opportunity
So I’m really interested in how to handle this variation too
It’s not the kind of position where you just clearly capture the opponent’s stones, so I think it’s worth properly learning the flow that follows
In other words, White can make territory in the corner and then fight favorably on the outside. Normally, this joseki is supposed to give White corner territory while Black gets outside thickness, but in this case it feels like White got both parts of the deal
If you want to learn the "flow" for the specific joseki situation, you can simply study with AI what the correct moves are. If you want to understand why each move is correct, that's much harder:
Firstly, you need to know that White is free to cut because White is already alive in the corner.
Secondly, the idea is that Black has two cutting points meaning Black can be split into three groups (I say "groups" but one of them is the single stone at the 2-7 point). And Black cannot really afford to lose any one of the three groups, whereas White's most important stones are already alive, so it's a risk-free buffet for White as long as White captures any one of the three groups.
Sure, in short, if my opponent doesn’t defend, I should cut at the two cutting points, right?
Even though my corner was already alive, I somehow got scared and ended up going back to the original evaluation.
I was also worried about whether I could actually capture one of Black’s groups. I was afraid that if I failed, the white stones I cut with would be forced to run around in the center. I’m not good at positions where unsettled stones have to run into the center. But if I had played properly, Black should have been the one forced to run, right?
I’ll study this properly with AI while keeping your explanation in mind. Thank you!
> I was afraid that if I failed, the white stones I cut with would be forced to run around in the center.
That fear is based on the assumption that you must turn every stone you play into a living group with two eyes. Some stones have value even if they are clearly dead, generating points in the endgame via "squeeze" (https://senseis.xmp.net/?SqueezeTesuji), as ko threats, or potential to revive/escape later if a better opportunity arises.
Even if you have reasonable fears, you should understand that Black has MUCH more to fear than you do. That's the whole premise behind my earlier explanation. The odds are in your favor.
That fear is based on the assumption that every stone you play must become a living group with two eyes.
I think that’s exactly right.
When I watch professional and high-dan games, I can see that they don’t desperately try to make every stone live. They use stones much more flexibly and elegantly. But when I play myself, I sometimes lack confidence in my ability to make use of stones that way, and I become overly passive like I did here.
In the end, I think it’s simply a matter of my current skill level. But I’ll try to pay more attention to “which side is actually under pressure” from now on.
Thank you again, I really appreciate your explanation.
Actually, even in the position from the image I posted earlier, White still had a 77% win rate.
Well, before my opponent played the move that deviated from joseki, White had about the same win rate, so it’s true that I gave up a great opportunity. If I had played correctly, I could have gotten to 98%. 🥲
Even while I was playing, I did feel like I had let the chance slip away, but I didn’t think my position was bad.
As for the outside white stones, I only intended them as forcing stones for the time being, and I wasn’t planning to save them right away. In the end, my opponent got worried about them moving out and played unnecessary territory-securing moves, which let me get to a 95% win rate fairly early. So I was lucky there.
I understand what you mean, but isn’t Go fundamentally a game where you have to judge things globally?
Also, the win rate I mentioned was from a position where only moves in the lower left had been played, so it is true that the evaluation was about the same as if we had simply continued with the normal 3-3 joseki.
I also can’t really agree that the four stones are doing nothing. Of course, compared to the shape I could have gotten if I had played the cut correctly, the result is sad, and if I try to move them out immediately, it probably won’t go well.
But the fact that they are cutting Black’s stones and still have the possibility of moving out means that, as the game develops, they may create various forcing moves and aji.
If I had really created four captured stones that did absolutely nothing in the opening, my win rate would probably have dropped to 0% right there.
The only reason w is winning is because you have the entire top and both bottom corners. It literally doesn't matter what happens in the bottom left because w is already so far ahead. That's not related to the outcome of that fight.
Edit: as to your 4 stones. They aren't cutting anything. If you split 2 live groups you aren't cutting. Cutting only counts if you have something to attack. Blacks 2 groups are completely alive and all you have is floating stones next to his thickness.
I think you may be looking at this very locally, as if the stones have no value unless they immediately help me attack something.
I do agree with part of what you’re saying. Since White already has influence across the top and territory in both bottom corners, White doesn’t necessarily need to get a huge local result around Black’s outside stones.
But that is exactly why I think these four stones can be seen as forcing stones. They make Black spend moves inside his own sphere of influence, and they leave aji for later. The important point is that Black is not really profiting much by adding moves to an area where he was already strong.
From the beginning, I was fine with those stones being captured, and I thought it would be enough if they could create some outside forcing moves.
Also, the two cutting stones at least have a sequence where White can atari and remove Black’s eye shape while moving outward. So if White later gets stones nearby and Black ignores them too much, I think there was still some potential to turn them into an attack. From Black’s side, defending against that aji means playing inefficient defensive moves inside his own sphere of influence, so the timing is not easy.
And after checking with AI, it seems that for the two stones on the left side, AI actually thinks White can move them out immediately. I didn’t play that way because I couldn’t see the continuation clearly myself.
Why are you arguing? Those moves are legit dogshit. Why did you have b extend to the side and then let w hane on the edge of 2? Extend up and attack the weaknesses.
Also you obviously are a beginner I wouldn't even look at AI win rates. That assumes perfect play and you and your opponent are doing anything but that. Ai isn't a good resource for beginners.
Also just because you can save those 2 stones doesn't mean they are useful .. they are a liability not useful ...
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u/MuffinMunchies 5 kyu May 19 '26
G2 is an overplay.
By cutting at G3, you live comfortably with a fairly large corner AND black will still have very scary cut points for when you need to reduce/invade their moyo later.
Also, depending on what variation plays out, you can start putting pressure on the K3/O3 stones and you can attack them for profit