Scramming

I was watching a review of a game and the reviewer mentioned something about one player being a scrammer, which was like where you play a bad move and try to scram it to safety. What is this, and is where a way to get good at it?

Let me get this straight. You want to know how to get good at playing bad moves and trying to save it?

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Yea, it sounds fun!

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It may not be the best of strategies, but I don’t think anyone can argue that it would be a useful tactic to have if you need it.

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Does anyone know any good tutorials for it?

  1. play a bad move
  2. be so much stronger than your opponent that you can save it

You can also skip 1, that might make the game easier for you, but that then it would not be scramming anymore.

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I have never seen a Go teacher offer to teach how to play bad on purpose.
Even in trick plays, there is an aspect of enticing the opponent to play the wrong answer, whereupon the trick move will lead into a favourable variation.
There was a discussion on the philosophy behind trick plays here: Defending against trick plays, maybe this is what you are looking for.

After you have made a genuinely bad move, like an unsuitably deep invasion, and your opponent answers correctly, ‘scramming’ is not what you should do. I’m sure this was the whole point of the review.
When you have taken a local loss, the best option is often to accept the bad exchange for what it is and play the next big point elsewhere on the board. You should not add even more bad exchanges, that will only make the situation worse.

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I think what people are reacting against is the idea of playing a bad move and trying to make it work. But you’re really asking about deep invasions, right? How to destroy potential and live to tell about it. This idea can be good in certain situations, though I’ve never heard the term “scramming” in relation to that.

You might find this commentary instructive. It features a deep invasion by Kitani Minoru 9p. The good stuff starts at move 87. http://www.learngo.co.uk/Live/ViewSGF.php?Id=126

Also check out dwyrin 5d’s video lecture featuring Choi Cheolhan 9p invading a big moyo and fighting (scramming?) for life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U200Cw_16hE&t=25m36s

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I’ve seen in go books such as “play against strong players” (Sakai Michiharu) that they show you how can the best secuence be after a bad move. It’s like: “okay, you messed up here, this is the best you can do after that move”

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here is the video I heard it in, I think he might have been saying squirmer