Combat Series 7 - 34 Knight enclosure corner defence

 

One of my many weaknesses is fighting and the excellent Dwyrin in his 2nd book 'Centering the Middle Game' gave an interesting example of how you can muck up a corner defence of a knight on a 34 and showed several ways to defend instead. Now I am not a fan of mistake farming but I suppose it's a valid hail mary attempt. What interests me more is what it teaches about stone shape and the lessons are more generally, well I think, applicable.

I won't give the text as I'd prefer you to buy his book but will show the game examples.

(note there were a lot more white stones further up so there was nowhere for Black to run to)

Anyway here is the start point with Black's hail mary

White did is what a lot of us do, especially with this much strength at DDK , and atari'd

This though means P3, R4 and S3 are all unconnected and Black can threaten ataris to make life as it does here..

Dwyrin then gives two examples of how to kill - the first hurts my head slightly

So basically splitting then getting into a capture race that White wins. I would not be so sure of the race plus the freedom of the R8 stones to try to get out would concern me to - so I was much more pleased by the 2nd example

My question is firstly  if I can read but it  basically says that Black can have a lovely 3 space in the corner that white can fill, but nothing else, and is all built on keeping the surrounding stones strong. I really like this approach as even if Black managed to live White hasn't lost a huge amount.

So my next step is to look at stupid DDK alternates to see what else a DDK like me might try and how I should respond..

Perhaps Black might try dropping 

But that just leads to the same position on the bottom row - white can Q1 then connect or play away and when Black P1 can Q1 to kill the eye as the rest of white is strong or if Black Q1s itself just throw in to S1. If 3 is at S4 then White not ataris to get to the same position. - Also if Black plays 1 at 3 the same occurs.

If Black tries to extend to S3 then standard corner kill stuff comes into play so

Making a boxy 5.

Or if some of the old 44 knight invasion shenanigans are in play and they tigers then it also leads to an upside down 5 shape.

I find this very useful - it shows the advantage of local strength in responses plus how much stronger a 2 stone pillar makes the entire position. After all it's all very well the books saying ' an enclosure on a 34 point gives 10 ish points guaranteed territory if you can't defend that 34', so well done Dwyrin for generating this excellent thought experiment.

If anyone can think of any other wilder Black attempts then please say. Thanks for reading. The next combat series post will be a two parter. The first on basic shoulder hit responses gleaned from experts and the second a ' what if they pincer or tenuki' example that's quite involved but useful training (I think)