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It is better to play the fool and do nothing, rather than pretend to know every-thing and act rashly. Be deeply calm. Until the right moment arrives, it is better to be quiet like a land mine buried underground. We can explain this in the context of Go as: If we want to attack the enemy somewhere but the time is not yet ripe, we must wait without revealing [our idea], and create an op-portunity.

Basic Figure: Taken from the 1985 China-Japan Super-Go Match. White ", res-cuing four stones, was the biggest yose play. At this point in the game, White was well in the lead. He only needed to seek out his weak points and reinforce them to coast to victory. But White overlooked a latent threat.

Figure 1 - Actual Game Continuation: The tsuke at Black 1 was a clever move!

The whole White group was suddenly mired in diffi-culties. Now [White] deeply regretted not having played

" at 4 to reinforce this group. Under the pressure of the sound of byo-yomi, he suddenly hit on a way out of the predicament. He saw that there was still a ray of hope...

Pushing at 2 was an absolutely fantastic move in this situation! (If Black answered at 9, White would hane at a, Black b, White c, and White would be out of danger.) Warikomi at Black 3 was strongest. White played atari at 4, then Black captured three stones and White captured one back. The reinforcement at Black 9 was the inevitable continuation. (For the variation where White plays 4 at 9, see Diagrams 1 and 2. ) After this exchange of moves, White had gained quite a few liberties, so White could succeed with the semeai started by ogeima at 10. 11 through 17 were correct. Then 18 was tesuji. (If he played de at d, then a Black kosumi at 18 would make a no-pressure ko to kill White. Please play this out for yourself.) The connection at 20 was a perfect ko threat. The ko fight in this semeai simply could not be avoided.

Figure 2 - Actual Game Continuation: Black 23 gained one liberty. White 24 was the urgent point. If he were to connect the ko at +, then Black would play at 24 and White would be at a disadvan-tage. In the big dragon on the right side, White had four ko threats, and he also had one internal ko threat.

Due to this fact, if Black had played 29 at 38 he would have been short by one ko threat. When Black cut at 29, White resolved the ko. If Black captured

three stones, then White could play tsuki-atari at 31 to gain one liberty and kill the Black corner unconditionally. So Black had no choice but to play atari at 31. White connected back at 32, leaving Black no profit at all.

Black captured in ko at 33 to prevent White from starting another ko. He

had to make this play. Hane at 34 was the vital point. The ensuing semeai still turned into a ko fight. But from start to finish this ko fight was to White's advantage. On the right side White still had three ko threats.

Black could only helplessly play three consecutive moves in the upper right corner with 45, 47, and 49. White resolved the ko, capturing Black's corner. Black resigned in view of the big loss.

Let's look back at some simple variations.

Diagram 1: The osae with White 4 cannot succeed! After Black crawls out at 9, due to + on the second line Black can crawl over on the first line. White is short of liberties. Now the big White group also cannot enter a semeai with the corner. White 10 is strongest, but after Black reduces liberties with 11, 13, and on up to 17, White obviously does not have enough liberties.

Diagram 2: If White changes 6 to the simple magari as here, the result is about the same. Black calmly captures at 7. If White does not play 8, then Black can crawl over just like Diagram 1.

After the osae at White 8, Black takes away his liberties at 9 and 11. Inside, it becomes seki, but because the four White stones on the outside will be captured, this seki equates to unconditional death.

The reason Black was defeated in the game was because he was not calm enough. He thought that he only had to play at 1 and he

would succeed. He did not pay any attention to the fact that White had the excellent resource of pushing at 2 to resist. Black's mistake was in not accurately judging his own weakness.

Diagram 3: (The Correct Solu-tion): Black's weakness was hav-ing too many ko threats against his big group on the right. He should have made every effort to resolve this weakness, not leaving it a single foothold. Black 1, captu-ring one stone, is the perfect op-portunity to utilize the stratagem

“play the fool”. You can be sure that White would not notice the life-and-death situation on the lower side, but rather would con-nect at a. Then Black could make his move, with a difference of one less ko threat from the actual game continuation. The result of the semeai would be completely reversed. (If Black 29 in Figure 2 were played at 38, regaining one ko threat, Black would be one threat ahead and would win the ko.) This way Black would reach his goal in a most satisfactory manner. Naturally, if Black 1 here were a useless move, then there is no way White would answer by connecting at a. To see whether or not this is a worthwhile move after all, please see Diagram 4.

Diagram 4: Under the condition that White had seen the danger, the kosumi at White 2 would be the correct move. After Black captures one stone with 5, White is separated into two groups, above and below. The White corner is not safe, so White would reinforce the corner at 6. Cutting

first at Black 7 is the right move order. If White were to answer at 9 at this point, Black would connect at 8, then when White cuts at 10 to make life in the center, Black would play tsuke at a ruining White's territory. So White must play de at 8, Black plays magari at 9, and when White cuts at 10, the simple turn of Black 11 is absolutely beautiful. White cannot play at both the weak points b and c.

Diagram 5: If White does not reinforce the corner [White 6 in Diagram 4], then Black would play hasami at 7 followed by nobi at 9. In the variation up to Black 15, it becomes an approach-move ko.

In any case, after White lets Black capture [at 5 in Diagram 4], there would inevitably be defects in the separated groups. Then too, he would not realize there

is a problem with the lower group. Inevitably, White would respond at a in Diagram 3. After the exchange of these two moves [1 and a in Diagram 3], Black's latent tactics can succeed.

Conclusion: When your opponent's group has a defect, and he has not discovered it, you should take advantage of the opponent's state of mind to strengthen your own position or take a little profit along the way. In this situation, any little threat against him becomes sente (Diagram 3 is an example). This kind of tactic where you pretend you don't have anything in mind is what we call “playing the fool”. This stratagem is always used when the opponent has a weakness, and especially when we are not too sure about our chances with an immediate attack. Because we are not entirely confident, we take advantage of our opponent's lack of defensive preparation to gain some profit. We await a chance to attack such that our opponent has no room to resist.

This stratagem is different from “crossing the sea by treachery”. The key to this stratagem is pretending there is nothing going on. Up until the moment is ripe, we do not reveal even a trace [of any plan] at all.