Middle Game Fighting

This week, Minue went deeper into middle game fighting techniques with me, which was very helpful. He verbalized a lot of things which make total sense, but which I never really applied consciously.

He was reviewing my game against him (yes, I got pounded into dogmeat at 9H), and this position came up.



He took this as an opportunity to teach me more about middle game fighting (which is one of my many weaknesses)

"Here, my point is simple. W cut black. Then, don't panic. Whenever you are in complex contact fight, where your opp tries unreasonable cut, don't play atari blindly. First thing to think are these questions.

1. Read if u can kill its cutting stone. Can i kill it by ladders or net? If u can kill it by ladders, kill it by "atari". If u can not kill it by ladders or net.
2. Don't panic, and dont play harmful atari.
   In this position, these are examples of harmful atari.
   
   
   
   
   
   Usually, atari move is bad when u can not kill white by atari play. See this is cross cut pos, in general, atari just hurts one of ur stones.
   
3. Check if ur stone is "important cutting stones". If so, u should not give it up. Here, both of black A and B is very important stones, so black should save both of them.
4. Next, find which one is "weaker stone". In this pos, black B is weaker than black A. Then, increase its libs. Since, black center stones are in danger, (with less libs) black jumps toward to center, to increase its liberties
   
   
   

If u keep this basic point, ( middle game fight as "liberty competion"), direction of stones in middle game is not so hard. Fundamentally, any move which increases ur libs, and reduces opp's libs effectively is good move in middle game, no matter what specific shape it is. If empty triangle is really best, to do it, then empty triangle is good middle game fight move. "

Amazing how simple it is when you look at it this way. Yet another example of how go is all about simplicity. I just will need to find this simplicity in my games.