Just wondering if there is an unofficial term for these “worms” that can poke through into a moyo and really create havoc. I’ve never really seen this mentioned in books or anything, but it’s actually fairly prevalent at DDK levels at least. These worms are just escaped strings connected to solid territory that don’t aim to make life in the opponent area, but just merely destroy territory. I guess they are somewhat common at DDK levels since the victim may not know very well how best to stop the carnage, lol!
3 Likes
Do you mean hane? A cut through (and into) an opponent’s potential territory?
I’m referring to this white string here that just devastated black’s upper right quadrant. It just sort of poked through and left a mess.
I’ve just thought of hane as sort of attaching to the side of an opponent stone from your own (diagonally). I guess white at O11 was initially a hane of either N11 or P11, but I’m mostly just referring to the actual breakthrough and it’s effect. Sure you could just say it’s an invasion, I guess, but not in the conventional Go way of placing a single stone in opponent potential territory.
It’s not important what or if it’s called anything, just makes me think of a worm or something sneaking in and making a mess of things 
2 Likes
Ah, I see what you’re getting at.
To your point perhaps it doesn’t really matter what one might call it. The names given to various shapes (in various languages) are akin to how we see shapes in clouds in the sky… They merely remind us of things that make for handy associations, which in turn serve as a shorthand for subsequent communication.
Unless anyone with far more knowledge than anything this newbie could bring to bear, I’ll gladly agree to call it an invading worm. 
Let’s see how long it takes for sometime to correct us 
Looks like a reduction by White that was poorly handled by Black. I’ve never heard of a name for that.
2 Likes
But names can be important. We have “dragons”. Not “important” perhaps, but useful for describing something.
I find it fascinating that there is a “thing” like this that doesn’t have a name!
Maybe it is because it’s a beginner phenomenon, and beginners don’t tend to end up naming things 
4 Likes
I’ve seen it called a snake before. I’ve noticed it to be pretty common with newer players.
2 Likes
Yeah, I almost feel guilty for doing that…almost. It almost seems mean, haha! But I do hope the opponent at least learned from it.
2 Likes
These kind of positions are much rarer outside beginner games, because black (in this case) has probably made a big mistake to let it happen. Often this is the local shape mistake of “squeezing the toothpaste” or “ripped keima” which do have names, but I’m not aware of a standard name for the resulting strategic phenomenon of a string of stones wiggling around inside the opponent’s territory, more than a descriptive “effective reduction”, though I too have heard them informally called a snake. It’s a reduction not an invasion if it starts out safely connected to the outside, invasions are new separate groups.
3 Likes
It seems to be an ongoing game (although almost over) so we shouldn’t comment on it.
3 Likes
2 things I noticed about this.
First the victim usually doesn’t handle well how to limit the damage. Like he wants to save all but finally save nothing. Or like he doesn’t think to stay a bit more back to his blockade to work.
For the perpetrator, the main concern is to not be enough solid in the connection. We say for example that a diagonal move may be the only right move when entering a moyo (not a jump or a keima).
For naming, it’s part of what we call “reduction”, starting from the outside, by opposition to “invasion” which is like starting from inside.
4 Likes
The fact that no one is having trouble recognizing and explaining what is happening here also reduces the urgency for a specific name. “An invading dragon that leads to a large reduction, usually due to an inexpert handling of the moyo borders” might not be the pithiest header for Sensei’s library, but we’ve all seen one on a board
Back in the day we used to call this “squeezing out the toothpaste”. Basically any shape where originally it was easy to seal off potential territory with one move, but once the reduction gets a single stone poking in, there is no way to stop it except jumping way back and abandoning half the potential territory.
2 Likes
1 Like