hello again beginner is welcome to week
three of the beginner go series that I'm
starting designed to teach people who
have zero experience about the game and
get them to a place where they can learn
on their own have fun and arrives
through the ranks quickly second episode
that I put out last week you can find a
link in the description below
essentially went through a practice
strategy I taught you how to play games
you can get the most benefit out of your
games and learn the most that you can
from each loss as well as teaching you
one of the basic and most important
principles of the game which is staying
connected this game we're going to get
rid of all the no abstract fluff and
really start getting into learning some
technical skills about the game so I'm
trying to figure out which of the
aspects of go is most important to learn
first and try to figure out what you
like the many many ideas that should try
to teach a new player and I was thinking
back to a martial arts training I've
done martial arts since I was a kid and
the first thing that they teach you
isn't complicated fighting sequences
it's not timing it's not even punching
or kicking first thing they teach you is
how to have a good stance I have a good
foundation how to fight from an
advantageous position by having a good
base so I figure maybe use that for the
equivalent of go and the equivalent of a
fighting stance and go is shape good
shape meaning good placement of your
stones with relationship to your other
stones can make fighting surrounding
territory and just playing the game
exponentially easier shape is the means
to which you achieve your goals in the
best and most efficient way possible
once you say someone has bad shape that
means generally their stones aren't as
efficient with relationship to each
other and their goal could have been
done either more effectively or with
less stones so in the spirit of that I'm
going to teach you guys how to make good
shape teach you guys some of the base
shapes for beginners and why they are
good and then point out some examples
from beginner games where shape kind of
messed them up or how you could have
messed them up if you looked at their
shape so let's learn to have a good
stance
okay so I talked a lot about shape right
and I said that shape is the
relationship of your stones with respect
to your other stones what defines good
shape versus bad shape well if you think
back to the first principle that I
taught you in the last video it's all
about staying connected right connection
connected stones or stronger stones
therefore in general stones have better
shape when they're more easily able to
be connected so let's take a stone here
and let's say that black wants to
enclose more territory this way
let's just say that right black could
just play a stone right next to and then
start to build this way right but that's
a little slow what a black wants a
little bit more can you get more well he
could go one space up notice that this
is separated by one intersection is that
a problem
well it's really not because we can see
that if white tries to split here black
can Atari White's forced to leave and
black can defend one of these two points
doesn't matter which one and he plays
here so now he's connected and this
can't be disconnected because if white
tries black shows can Atari Atari and
takes right so this one spacer close to
the edge leads to white tries to split
it's extremely hard
wait black is always connected what
about two spaces what about two spaces
so let's say black wants even more you
just going for it
let's see white try to split again what
would happen well white wants to try to
split he's going to obviously play in
between right Black's going to play a
natural move to try to link up his
stones now we're going to have to go
through a couple different ways of
trying to cut black apart and see if
they work first let's just see if white
threatens to go to go here again you can
see that black doesn't really mind that
much of white tries to cut here blacks
cotton Atari right so that doesn't work
and if white tries to counter cut over
here black can do the exact same thing
right so we can see that a two space
extension at least if white tries to do
this so far it's safe what if white
tried this way now keep in mind this is
dangerous remember white isn't being
strong in his attack he's allowing
himself to be disconnected right away
and that's an Atari on this stone right
here so why would have to leave
in which case black could then simply
solidify right now you might be thinking
uh stone though the stone what's this
guy is this a problem
not really if the stone tries to escape
black and just khana under right only
has two liberties versus blacks one two
three so even if why try to cut here we
see that he's a move behind so this way
doesn't work for white either what if
white cut this way run into basically
the same issue we can Atari here white
has to leave it's all right here and
even if white tried to give a counter
Atari to the stone we can simply take
and we're basically in the same position
right one move behind black captures and
so we see something fundamental about
shapes right that two spaces seems to be
about the maximum you can go to stay
connected because let's for all intents
and purposes see if black when three now
why it's going to play right in the
middle right so now what can happen
well black can try that same trick that
we were showing right maybe go under a
little bit and if we try this way
looks like there's no issues because we
see that that doesn't work and we see
that that doesn't work for the same
reasons that I just showed you because
if white descends then black can do this
and it's the same as the previous
sequence but what if he does this now
that going to be a problem well we can
try the same strategy right cut cut the
honey but now white can Atari here and
we can try to give an Atari back but
now we've got lots of stone and we'd all
have lost a stone and these two points
are still cutting points where as it
stands right now black can defend this
one and he's fine
because if white tries to do this and
gets caught in a ladder and falls right
and if I'm going to show help do another
video about ladders and nets but this is
just a very basic giving you a flavor
for the different types of ways that
white can try things so we see that this
can still be connected but what was able
to get a base on the inside here um
pretty comfortably actually so we see
that there is a weakness in these three
this this three shape I mean black could
totally connect if he wants to but white
is going to be able to either get a base
or just reduce or run out or what have
you there's less pressure on this stone
so we've seen shape in a straight line
right um but what if you want to move in
direction right stones don't have to
just move in a straight line so to
complicate this let's put a stone right
here and let's say that it's black
smooth and he wants to try to expand his
area while reducing or attacking White's
area seems pretty reasonable right well
the most basic and strongest move to try
to move in a direction from your stone
that isn't just a straight line is the
diagonal this is a really strong shape
because it can never ever be
disconnected you see white tries to
disconnect black just fills in the other
way no problem
light goes here black goes there no
matter what these two stones and B will
never ever ever be disconnected ever so
great
can black do more though can he get as
much out of these stones as he can and
we're gonna examine that so let's take
the labels away okay now let's say that
instead of the diagonal black decides
let's push it a little bit let's go here
this is called a knight's move because
it looks like it's the same shape that a
knight in chess has this is what's
called a cuttable shape okay because
white can play here and if black tries
to connect up the stones white can cut
them now we know white can always cut
this small Knight but whether it works
is a matter of that depends on the
situation in this case because black is
close to the edge we can see that if
white black just follows down here even
if Y were to try to get this Atari black
would just leave and he doesn't have
enough moves to capture the stone so in
this case the small Knight is a good
move it works black can play this way
and not be afraid of getting cut your
reversibly let's change the situation up
a little bit let's say that it's a black
stone here white stone here and there's
White's don't you alright and black does
the same type of thing what we're going
to play the same sequence out right
black tries to give that Atari this way
we see that white is now diagonally
connected to his own stones kind of a
problem right black tries to go this way
White's out and he can connect up here
but
now this stone suffers and white can
swallow this stone and he got
disconnected remember we were trying to
keep connected this stone and this stone
with this large knight's move but
because this extra strength given to the
stone by a we see that it doesn't work
as well as it did in the previous one
this is more open towards the center
there's more freedom and white has an
extra stone to help so this is a
situation when it might be better
depending on how we want to fight and
how you want to play your game to simply
play the diagonal and get connected to
this stone you wanted to through a calm
simple push and so that's sort of the
weirdness about shape is that shape can
be good or bad depending on the context
and there is definitely a lot of shapes
out there for example there is the table
shape right you'll see this a lot it's
called the table shape this is a very
good shape to make your stones in for
creating eyes and creating life but
those are what I call um sort of
fighting shapes those are shapes and
things that you want to consider when
you're actually in a fight which is a
little more advanced so I don't really
want to get into that in this video I
want to I want to focus just on moving
shapes how to move your stones across
the board in a way that you won't get
cut the last connection I want to show
you is the large Knight so let's say
that black has a stone here and he
pushes it one space further than the
small night he goes all the way up here
can this be cut well in this situation
let's go through our variations right
how a white best cut will you start on
one of these four spaces right start
here to stay connected black would one
probably do this like an cross cut right
away now the
is this crosscut you've seen this a lot
this gets complicated pretty quickly but
we can see that if black just calmly
connects here white can Atari but if
white then when black escapes white
doesn't really have any great follow up
moves
wake and try going here but blacks just
going to turn and white can't do this
because this is a double Atari on a and
B see how that sort of works white is
getting disconnected in trying to
disconnect and that's a lot of the way
that go is sort of happens a lot of
times the attacker becomes the attacked
if you don't do it well enough so we can
see that that way wouldn't really work
could white do this well not really
because then that's just an Atari on the
stone so you're connected so that's
totally fine if you keep doing this you
will see that there really isn't a way
to disconnect this large night extension
close to the edge and that's very
important if this large night extension
was way off in the middle of nowhere
over here and there are some white
stones in the area you could totally you
can cut this I can start maybe from here
go here and then cut and now we see that
black has gotten disconnected from the
stone that he was trying to connect to
with the large Knight right and so this
looks a little more iffy for black to
try to get some good situations out of
he might be able to capture one of the
groups but in the end it was still
disconnected and forget about it if
white had a stone when had two stones
like us don't over here or something
like forget it this is not a connected
shape you do not want to play the large
Knight in between these two white stones
mean to see that if black doesn't do
anything white can just immediately cut
and black is disconnected so what I call
movement shapes the one space jump let's
recap got the one space jump right the
one space jump the two space jump the
diagonal the small knight in either
direction right or the large Knight are
your basic movement shapes that's for if
you want to expand your area if you want
to push against your opponent's area if
you want to make more territory you want
to move your stones across the board
those are the shapes you want to try to
think about but I hope that sort of
helped you figure out you know how do I
move my stones across the board in a
successful way okay I just want to know
Jess picked out a random game a random 9
by 9 game so this actually is a pretty
cool one you've got actually two
instances where they had some shape
problems and the first instance
unfortunately it wasn't taken advantage
of and white sort of got away with a
little bit too much so let's see how
this works out you should be able to
learn lot in this so pretty normal right
now okay we see two one spacers right so
pretty strong black plays a strange move
it just hits on the stone usually you
don't want to do that right away cuz
it's going to invite you to make the
stone stronger for her white responds
with kind of a question we'll play right
remember we said the one space is always
connected
for the most part of its close to the
edge and there's no friends but black or
no enemies but we see black stones
getting dangerously close and he just
played a move that would be strong if
there wasn't already a stone here at a
we said the diet the diagonal was good
if it was on its own but this stone
right here
and the fact that it's blacks move
allows them to cut right away in fact
that's what we see we see black
immediately cut white up counter Ataris
and in black dissents
now notice White's got a bunch of shape
problems check out you know a B and C
none of these are connected to any other
stones yet and there's multiple threats
that black has white one is connect here
black can simply threaten this stone
right and then maybe come back and
capture this if he wants and then these
stones are still in danger in the game
we see white push to protect these
stones and this is where black could
have taken advantage because we're the
one space is always safe as long as
there's no one to be stones around but
look at this there's a black group
Bering bearing down on its neck and a
black group on top so we could easily
see that black tries to split going
through our splitting variations that we
learned before there's really nothing I
can do what I can try to send but this
is Atari and those stones will be
captured there's no two ways about it
and white stones now got completely cut
apart white can't counter Atari because
pillar to be captured then it's the same
thing so black had a chance to exploit
the weaknesses in white shape remember
it started out with white making kind of
an issue he's using normally strong
shapes but he's doing it right up
against his enemy stones which can lead
to some complications
if white wanted to try to wrap around
white should push one more time if white
wanted to do this and twice more then if
white wanted to Hani yeah sure go go to
town these stones are very much strong
enough
so we see a kind of a weird oops this is
the first shape problem right and almost
black almost took advantage of it it's
so sad
unfortunately he didn't see this
variation instead he won here which
allowed white to take care of the issue
now black can't do this because this is
Atari right so black tries to fight it
but white can just connect now and that
doesn't go anywhere so that's the first
part of shape that I can just see right
off the bat from picking a random game
we can see that this is diagonal right
so not connected yet but we see that
because it's close to the edge of black
tries to split this won't go anywhere
right these are completely surrounded
and doesn't have enough liberties only
has two liberties and this has three and
this has three so that's out of the game
black tried to do this white captured
and now we see another shape and this is
actually a good shape we see a two space
extension remember one through this two
space extension close to the edge almost
in this exact same way now can black
split well we go through in the game he
did the exact same thing that we
practiced and the end result was can't
really split this you can try but that's
an Atari and that's an Atari so neither
of those really go anywhere and right
why it's just a little bit too strong so
that was a good extension from him the
two spaces see he can do this
now remember if you were to make a three
space extension we think about how that
could work we see it doesn't work nearly
as well because go through the same
sorts of things we try to stay connected
we see that Boop black now has his two
stones a and B disconnected and you'll
learn how to spot ways of splitting
stones whoops not AV sorry
a and B because it was three spaces and
you guys will learn this all in due time
but there's danger in the three space
and so as to space idea was the correct
one so anything else interesting this
game so he does this black actually
doesn't do that he tries to save a stone
still doesn't work good whites extend
solidly he doesn't try to do any weird
holiday stuff because that's immediately
black an Atari right and immediately
extending down and I believe from there
black resigns because this group is dead
and there's no way to get this points
back so we can see those two mixes in
the first skin that I pull up the shape
was the deciding factor in this game
because black failed to take advantage
of White's mistake here getting getting
this cut a lot of this cut to happen
what's best way of dealing this would
probably be to extend not Atari but then
black can just go down right and even if
you just want to play very simply and
force white to capture this stone here
na he disconnected the one space so he
used he used the weakness of this area
to disconnect
this area which is a decent octave that
you can use and go but because he failed
to take advantage of that white got a
decent position and unfortunately what
was able to pull out the win so I hope
this helped I hope you've got some
better ideas about how to move your
stones with good shape and in future
videos probably not the next one but I
will get into fighting shapes and how to
make eyes and stuff and life and death
and all that good stuff but I think this
is one of the most important things
because you gotta learn how to walk
first before you can fight you need a
good stance and these shapes will give
you the good stance depending on the
situation so hope you learned a lot hope
it was informative and best of luck in
your games keep learning and I'll see
you all next week