Atari Abuse

Over my last few games, I have had too many cases of atari abuse, so reiterating what I should know already, but obviously still screw up.

Best recent example was in a recent minue lesson. This position evolves from the R4 invasion into the Black moyo.


Black overplayed here and W wants to punish. One of my attempts at punishment was this:



I was feeling all smug and satisfied with myself, until minue pointed out to me that the White 3, Black 4 move trade is a big damage to W. Feh! I keep falling into the atari trap. And of course, it made total sense when he explained it.



minue622 [7d]: here, white has 2 options to play atari.
minue622 [7d]: each of them can help white , depending on B's later plays.
minue622 [7d]: if u decide ur atari too early, it means that u lost ur choice
minue622 [7d]: since u has fewer choice to exploit B's weakness,
minue622 [7d]: opponent can fight more easily
minue622 [7d]: so, we save our atari until we know which atari is really helpful for our contact fight

This would be normal followup if we skip the harmful atari



minue622 [7d]: now..
minue622 [7d]: black A is fine
minue622 [7d]: this is good for w



Here W would never ever play move A, so would have been bad if he had played this earlier in the sequence.
minue622 [7d]: Q5 is a nonsense
minue622 [7d]: in contact fight, save playing atari.

If we had saved playing atari, and Black plays this way...



We now have perfect followup play and know which atari is useful to us.



minue622 [7d]: black will capture Q3, and W breaks side

This all is so reasonable and logical, but I still too often mess it up in my play. And of course, I mess it up the other way too. When I rightfully should atari, I avoid it because I don't want to play a crude move. Some day, I'll figure it all out, right?