Almost all stones exhibit influence in their local area. Stones can offer opportunities to make connections or blocks. As a result play in a given area is always affected by nearby stones. After the opening, during the early and middle game, it’s a good idea to spread out your moves—this gives you influence over a larger area of the board. Clustering your moves in one area may give you a large influence there, but in the meantime your opponent can move into the remaining areas of the board, and the local advantage won’t be sufficient to counter the global advantage your opponent has amassed. You can’t afford to waste moves in this manner.
Diagram 62 gives an example. White concentrates her opening moves in the east corner, leaving Black to extend his influence over a large swath of the board. Even though only seven moves have been played, White is already at a severe disadvantage.
Also avoid the temptation to try marching directly across the board. In Diagram 63, Black concentrates his stones building out from the northwest edge, while White spreads her stones out over a larger area. White’s position is much stronger, and it will be nearly impossible for Black to break through her position into the southeast area of the board.
If you’re totally lost as to where to play, look at the whole board and consider the areas where you have the least influence. Those areas are good candidates for a move.
The corner areas of the board are good areas to play in the early game (by “corner area” I generally mean between two and five tiles from the corner). Stones in the corner tend to have strong influence compared to other areas of the board. Each of your edges has two corners; it’s a good idea to play at least one corner on each edge during the opening phase. The middle of the board is also a strong area, naturally. However stones in the middle of the board can easily be blocked. Having stones in the corners can give provide opportunities to get around such blocks or escape the ladders that often result from blocks.
Avoid playing near the center of your own edges. This area exhibits the least influence. For example Black would generally avoid playing a move like h2 in the early and middle game. In fact, you are much better off playing near your opponent’s edge. b10 is a strong move for Black in the early and middle game. This may seem counterintuitive, but playing near your own edge typically does very little to block your opponent, while playing along their edge splits it up and makes their approach more difficult.
Be wary of always responding in the vicinity of your opponent’s last move, especially in the early game. While sometimes this is the best move, at least look around to consider other possibilities. Of course as the game continues your opponent will make threats that require direct responses—don’t be so focused on spreading your moves out that you ignore what your opponent’s doing!
Lastly, try to make moves that accomplish both a local and global objective. For example, you might make a move that blocks your opponent’s last move and takes one of the corners. The block is a local objective, while taking the corner is a global one.
To summarize, the three basic principles of the early game are:
- spread out your moves;
- avoid your own edges, attack theirs; and
- think both locally and globally.
Following these guidelines will serve you well at this stage. Let’s look at some games while keeping these ideas in mind.