Introduction: The Scope of Shape

What is shape?

Strong go players have in their armoury many set patterns of play. While shape (Japanese katachi) could mean any pattern that regularly occurs on the go board, it is useful to restrict the idea somewhat. The most immediately valuable shape ideas are those revealing the position of vital points. A vital point is a key location. If you occupy it, that by itself will give you a good result, not by some magic, but because of the nature of the position. This is very important in practical play: from the point of view of reading, playing the vital point is only looking one play deep! Strong players are able to play well without much apparent thought, simply by concentrating on correct shape (which is not to say that deep reading has no part in go). To start out, there is a small collection of go proverbs that help one to recognise those vital points of shape. (See the proverb index on p.216.) They are heuristics, not rigorous rules, and so are best studied with their exceptions: the meta-proverb says ‘beware of applying proverbs blindly’.

How do joseki and tesuji relate to shape?

In learning the basic tactics of go, one at an early stage identifies cutting points as crucial. Some time after that, the study of tesuji problems shows that major tactical gains may result from certain standard plays, in particular those taking advantage of lack of liberties. Good shape plays may be less extreme or dramatic than those handled under the heading of tesuji, and yet still offer important advantages. Opportunities to play tesuji occur only a few times in a game between well-matched players, but good shape is constantly required.

Before studying shape, most players will encounter a few set openings, called in Japanese joseki. Joseki are standard sequences, including the conventional corner openings. They are patterns that have been evaluated by consensus of professionals.

A given joseki sequence steers a way though many possible variations, some of which are discarded as obvious tactical failures. Normally many further variations are rejected as poor shape: some of the players’ stones areinefficient or redundant, one of the groups created has inadequate eye shape or is difficult to develop further, and so on.

Objectives of this book

To explain which points are vital in given shapes.

To show how good shape is achieved, and bad shape exploited, in fighting contexts.

To integrate shape proverbs into your knowledge of go.

To look behind the proverbs to another level of more explicit mechanism, to provide supporting material, and to explain exceptions.

To break down the barrier between tesuji and joseki points of view, connecting pure intuitions with learned knowledge.

To demystify many common tesuji.

To help the reader to visualise how and where a tesuji might happen in the future, a requirement for a dan player.

To discuss the choice of variation at a point in a joseki, when tactical reasons alone aren’t a sufficient guide.

To address as we go along questions about suji, or correct style, covering some of the content of the many texts on ‘kata and suji’ in the Japanese literature.

To contribute to the local, critical theory of go, by attempting a systematic listing of possibilities in a pattern, with criteria for choosing amongst them.

To develop an ingrained respect in the reader for the principles of good shape (for example: connect but remain light and flexible, don’t fill in your own liberties without very good reason, develop rapidly but also take into account eye shape).

To provide a reference on shape (there are an index of shapes and a proverb index at the end, to help you refer to particular patterns).

To show in action the comparative method of go study.

What should I study at my level?

From 10 kyu to 5 kyu levels, you should probably concentrate on recognising standard shapes as they come up in your own games, or play through professional games looking for them. It may be hard to understand why mistakes in shape are bad play, until you have also studied the basic shape concepts. In particular the study of joseki at this point may appear to be unrewarding, plain and simple memorisation.

Problem solving, first of all about basic life-and-death and then more general tactics under the heading of tesuji, is likely to seem more attractive to the player interested in progressing beyond 10 kyu. After solving enough problems from the go literature, you should begin to find the vital points in formations. This book can serve as a reference for these standard shapes.

The extended joseki example studied in this Introduction is suitable for players about 5 kyu and stronger. You can use it as a diagnostic test for what you already know. If you don’t initially get much out of it you should probably read some of the simpler sections first (see below).

The approach of this book

Books on joseki are arranged by variation; books on tesuji are organised in one of two ways: by underlying shape, or by function (as in the Fujisawa Shuko Tesuji Dictionary, the current standard work). None of these structures makes for readability, but they are suitable for reference works. We normally adopt a combination of shape and function approaches.

Studying this book

Some people will read this work through as a book (if you are of dan level you might enjoy this); perhaps alternating with a book on tesuji. There are five main parts, each starting on a fresh area, within which the chapters generally increase in difficulty. The parts, too, become harder as the book progresses. Each chapter is broken down into short sections dealing with a specific topic. There are also three problem sets, the third being much harder than the others.

Otherwise you may find it helpful to study one of these shape ‘courses’. You can use these section lists as our indications of difficulty.

First reading (10 kyu course):

1.1, 1.2, 1.3. 2.1 to 2.5. 3.1, 3.4, 3.5B, G and M. 4.1, 4.2, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6. 5.1, 5.3, 5.4. Problem Set 1 first half. 7.1, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6. Problem Set 2 first six problems. 11.1. 13.1, 13.2, 13.4.

Second Reading (5 kyu course):

Introduction. 1.4, 1.5. 2.6. 3.2, 3.3. 4.3, 4.7, 4.8, 4.9. 5.2, 5.5, 5.6. 6.1, 6.3. Rest of Problem Set 1. 7.2, 7.3, 7.7, 7.8. 8.1, 8.2, 8.3. 9.1. Rest of Problem Set 2. Chapter 10. 11.2, 11.4. 12.4. 13.3, 13.7. 14.1, 14.2.

Third Reading:

3.5. 6.2, 6.4. 8.4, 8.5. 9.2, 9.3. 11.3, 11.5. Chapter 12. 13.5, 13.6. Chapters 14 and 15. Problem Set 3.

References

This book could usefully be read in parallel with Tesuji by James Davies (Kiseido), Get Strong at Tesuji by Richard Bozulich (Kiseido, this book has many examples on correct suji), Tesuji and Anti-Suji of Go by Eio Sakata (Yutopian), and Proverbs, Max Golem translator (Yutopian). For a general introduction to go read Teach Yourself Go by Charles Matthews (Hodder & Stoughton/NTC) which provides enough background to begin this book. We refer in the text to ideas of Bruce Wilcox; EZGO – Oriental Strategy in a Nutshell (Ki Press, ISBN 0-9652235-4-X), written with Sue Wilcox, is a representative book.