n up, n+1 across…NOT
If this post’s title doesn’t make sense to you, you are free to leave now. American go players, however, should be familiar with the phrase as the generic proverb on judging how far to extend from one’s stones — e.g. if you have a 2 stone wall, you should extend 3 spaces across etc.
During last night’s kyu klass at the Seattle Go Center, Jon Boley shocked this student by stating that the “proverb” is wrong. In a sample fuseki Jon demonstrated how a four-space extension from a three-stone wall on the third line was open to invasion, making the wall heavy. In that case the correct extension is three spaces.
After I got home and the shock wore off, I realized that I missed the opportunity to ask Jon if this was just an exception to the rule, or if the rule is wrong so frequently that it should be completely discarded. It still seems to make sense in many situations, but now that it’s been shown to be faulty I’ll certainly think twice before automatically calculating the length of future extensions.
Per the old Firesign Theater, everything you know is wrong.