Defining the goal of an attack

What do you think are the basics of attack?

Perhaps it's capturing your opponent's stones?

Or maybe it's taking away the opponent's base and eye-space?

If these were the first things that came to mind, unfortunately, there's a high chance that you attack your opponent's stones only to ironically receive more damage than you dealt.

Many players see a weak group and immediately take the base and chase the group around in an attempt to kill it, but this is not what a successful attack looks like.

What is a successful attack?

Of course, depending on the game, there are situations where you have to capture your opponent's stones and situations where you have to take away the opponent's base and eye-space, but the basic way to perform a successful attack is:

"Make your opponent play low value moves."

You may think I'm a sadist, but when it comes to attack, knowing the joy of making your opponent play painful moves is significantly more important than capturing your opponent's stones.

What I mean is, it's not 'taking away the base of a group = an attack', but rather 'making your opponent play a low-value move = an attack'. To rephrase, an attack is when you make your opponent play a low-value move.

So, surrounding your opponent's stones to force them to live small is the important thing in an attack. By trapping your opponent inside and forcing them to play a painfully low-value move, you have succeeded in attacking.

Example:

Black to Play

Take a look at the situation in the top right corner. Here, if white plays the first move, white can make two eyes and live.

The Mistake:

Of course, if black hane's here to take away the eye space, white can't make two eyes locally.

But this move contradicts the basic concept of attack, which is to surround and make the opponent live small.

White will push here to stick his head out to prevent the surround...

And because black's upper group is now unstable due to white's push, black jumps here.

White sticks his head out with this attach,

Black extends,

White pincers. White is no longer in a position where being captured is a serious concern. Additionally, Black's upper group and right-side stones have been split apart, and Black's overall position is now ironically thinner than White's position.

If it goes like this, can we really call this an attack? Black started the 'attack', but the result looks like Black is now in more danger than White.

This is a prime example of the proverb, trying too hard to kill is the root of being killed.

Example:

Black to Play

Then if the hane to take the eyespace isn't it, how should black play instead?

If you understand the basic concept of attack, perhaps you've got this.

Correct Answer:

We can surround with the knight's move. White can't escape now so the only option is to make two eyes on the inside.

But even if white can live by playing this first line descend, it's a painfully small move to play at this point in the game compared to all of the other options available, right? There are 20 point moves all over the board and yet white has played this first line, endgame-esque move to live small.

From white's perspective, we're feeling like we were just forced to play a very painful move. By looking at the exchange of the black knight's move on the outside and white's descending move on the inside, we can say that the attack was successful.

Recap

Now let's compare the difference between the result of taking the eye space with the hane vs the result from surrounding with the knight's move to force a small life.

In this way, making one mistake in offensive strategy can completely change the game.

Conclusion

The basic concept of attack is to make your opponent play a low-value move. This is the most important thing to keep in mind when attacking.