« Rules and Rules Part III | Main | The Nature of Things »
August 13, 2004
Rules and Rules Part IV
Go's rules are dualistic. Once you know one rule, you can assume that its opposite is lurking. One Go rule is "Don't approach the opponent's strength." Good idea. If a car is coming at you, don't stand in front of it; move aside. If your opponent at the bake-off is really good at muffins and you're not, don't offer a challenge to end the contest by getting into a muffin-baking contest. Just as equity analysts don't offer much advice in sectors they don't cover, and just as lawyers focus on a particular brand of law, you best not try to compete where your opponent is strong.
However, there's also advice to Go players to approach strength!
The technique in Go is called a "lean." You lean on the opponent's strength, making the opponent stronger where the opponent is already strong, then attack the opponent's weakness. Just as you might hit to an opponent's forehand in tennis, the opponent's strength, to set up a shot to the backhand; just as Columbo might ask innocuous questions lulling the questioned into the trap of "just one more question," you can approach the opponent's strength, to get at the opponent's weakness and still be in the right.
Knowing which way to go is a matter of experience. There's no substitute for experience. GO'S RULES (covered in depth in the Way of Go) cannot help you gain it, but they can suggest, if you have the experience, to pay attention to both sides of the strategic coin.
Posted by wayofgo at August 13, 2004 12:15 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.wayofgo.com/MT/mt-tb.cgi/10
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)