How do I fight if my opponent keeps all their stones in a single, heavy group? Massive groups are impossible to capture and form impenetrable walls for territories. How do I fight against that sort of strategy?
(I remember some better examples but can’t find them.)
The weakness of the single heavy group is that it’s slow to build and you lose moves on the rest of the board. In this game you took advantage of that effectively by surrounding a larger area while your opponent was building a super-strong group around a smaller area.
It might be even more effective to play a little more distance from the big strong group. Here you were really bumping up against it which puts your stones at a disadvantage in a fight. But your opponent didn’t take advantage of that and generously allowed you to simply build a bigger wall on the outside.
You also have the option of building your own fortress while your opponent is occupied.
What’s stopping you from doing the same thing? You were playing Black, which means you have the first move – you should be the one that decides your strategy.
EDIT: Oh you were White, my bad. The opponent was playing Black, so he could have done the same thing first. But instead he chose to stay in one corner and didn’t expand it much.
EDIT 2: I misunderstood the question.
If you happen to notice silver spear in the game thumbnails, check them out. They have a style of frequently killing massive groups, like really so. Sometimes they pretend to have forgotten about it while they razzle dazzle elsewhere, then shanananaaaa! they’ve somehow surrounded the group that was “surely alive”.
More of an advanced technique I suppose, but fun to see what can be done.
Make more territory than them elsewhere on the board. The objective of go is not to capture all your opponent’s groups, but to have more territory than them at the end of the game.
Be happy that they are doing that because you can quickly gain a foothold over the rest of the board.
How about countering before it gets too large?
Funny thing is when he played vs. a stronger opponent, he’s the one who got completely destroyed in his own style: