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BGonline.org Forums
Double hit, four blots - please explain
Posted By: Timothy Chow In Response To: Double hit, four blots - please explain (mtuhtan)
Date: Friday, 23 July 2010, at 12:04 a.m.
Maybe it will help if you take these problems in two stages. First, do you hit at all? If you don't hit at all, you hand the opponent the initiative, giving him the chance to hit you or make a strong point or at minimum consolidate. In neither position do you have a non-hitting play that does great things for your own position. This observation should help convince you that hitting is a good option.
Once you've decided to hit it should be easier to see that hitting twice is better than hitting once in these positions. Hitting once will give your opponent many return shots so you'd rather be hanged for a sheep rather than a lamb.
I'm not a huge fan of the "commitment is bad" line. The word "commitment" isn't a bad word to have in your vocabulary, but in judging any particular position, you have to weigh specifics against specifics. Yes, the double hit is "committal." But what are you committing yourself to? How does it stack up against the alternative? You might not be committing yourself to cleaning up all your blots if your attack goes well. It may be worthwhile playing this position out interactively a few times (or rolling it out several times and saving the games for closer examination) to see how it's likely to evolve. In many variations, you will not be scrambling to clean up your blots but will be hitting and making the best points you can for a while.
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