Get Strong at Attacking

The techniques of attacking, along with tesuji and life-and-death, are part of the middle game, but, whereas you will find an abundance of literature on the latter two subjects, books that focus solely on creating or spotting vulnerable stones, then illustrating how to correctly attack them, are hard to find. This book is aimed at helping to alleviate this lack. Accurate analysis — spotting tesujis and killing or rescuing stones — is certainly the backbone of middle-game strength, but creating or finding vulnerable stones, then attacking them correctly is an equally important technique and one that many amateurs are deficient in. The 136 problems in this book illustrate: • the importance of securing your stones before attacking; • in which direction to attack, taking into account the strength and weakness of your own stones and those of your opponent’s; • when it is advantageous to confine your opponent’s stones or when it is better to gouge out their eye space; • how to execute leaning attacks, that is, attacking stones in one part of the board in order to build strength to capture or threaten stones somewhere else; • splitting attacks, where stones are separated into two groups and both are put under siege; • that the ultimate purpose of attacking is not to kill your opponent’s stones, but to threaten them so as to secure territory or to build influence.