Meaning of "Don't make any cut knights' moves"

General Go Discussion
1

I was reading this article ( http://mechner.com/david/go/) on how to improve, and it concludes with

  • Don’t make any cut knights’ moves.

What does it mean?

2

Probably this: (https://senseis.xmp.net/?RippedKeima)
image from senseis
Having White’s stones pushed right through that narrow gap is very bad for Black. Black is almost always better off having not played the two stones.

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3

Thanks, that’s an obviously bad shape for black. But unlike empty triangles, black didn’t really MAKE this shape did he? I was thinking maybe it means cutting into a knight’s move when that’s not justified ( so the marked stone is black rather than white ). But I don’t know.

4

Actually I wasn’t able to read the article you were talking about initially but the Wayback Machine worked for me. I think the key part of that section (if we’re referring to the same one) is the

There are some tricks for doing this. Set yourself exercises. That doesn’t mean don’t play seriously; within the constraints of the exercise you should play as well as you can. The great thing about go is you can get better just by thinking. Here are some exercises you can try in your games.

bit: i.e. you can play in a constrained manner where you never make any empty triangles even if it’s the best move available or, never play in a way where you’ll get cut (or cut) a knights move, and through those constraints you can explore more of how the game flows. So, the more important bit is “play with constraints on the moves you make”, not which specific rules you’re using. Not 100% sure though, so maybe someone else will have some other thoughts.

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5

I can’t open the link either but I agree with Timuzhti that that’s what it seems to be talkin about. In this particular case, black allowed the shape by not responding. In other cases, black might even induce (and kyus often do) this shape by playing certain types of moves like image playing the push on the left side instead of keima on the right, when a diagonal jump is cut. It sounds like that advice is intented to prevent allowing this sort of “pierce” shape.

6

Sorry, I also was reading at WayBack, and copied pasted the original URL without thinking. You are right, the article says it’s in the context of an exercise.

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