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Advanced players know how important it can be to control a line of discs - but often it's just as important to avoid having any discs on a line. This Kurnik game between Italy's Andrea Silvola and Alessandro De Mattei shows a couple of ways that "line control" and "line avoidance" can earn victory.

The above board is an example of how line avoidance and line control can work in tandem. Andrea, as black, played 21.f2. This is understandable, as with f3 and e4 white can play f7 and black cannot play c6. 21.f2 effectively counters this threat - but look at 21.h7! Quite often this is a dangerous move, but note that there are no black discs on the 3 row, so it does white little good to play h4. At the same time, black controls the d7-g4 diagonal, making a white h3 response impossible. Of course this gives up the 22.f7 23.h2 24.c6 sequence, but it is still good because of the seeley-esque 25.d8 26.f8 27.b6 28.h4 29.h3 30.b8 31.g2!!

De Mattei's 42.b2 sets up the board above. Black has a solid advantage at this point, but how to bring it home? Silvola takes advantage of his F-column line avoidance by playing 43.f1 44.g1 before 45.h2, which makes sense on the surface as 43.h2 poisons the F-column - with 45.h2 46.h3 47.h7 black is looking at capturing a1, the 1-row and having g2 as a sealed parity area. Best is actually 43.h2! instead, and the concept of the sealed g2 can be accomplished later. How? 43.h2 44.h3 45.h7 46.d8 47.b8 48.g7 49.h8 50.b7 51.a8 52.a7 53.g8!! brings about the board below.

Now 54.f8 is essentially forced, clearing up the F-column again. 55.f1 56.g1 57.a1 and black will get the sealed g2 for parity.

Back to the actual game, the 43.f1 44.g1 45.h2 sequence is actually losing, and Silvola found out why. De Mattei has to keep control of the b2-f6 diagonal, so 46.h3 47.h7 48.b8 flips back e5, and 49.f8 50.d8 gives up the south but controls the important diagonal. 51.a8 brings us to the board below.

So now what? The disadvantage of line control becomes apparent when looking at 52.g7, a move De Mattei surely wishes he could make. 52.g7 would let Silvola play 53.g8, and even with best play and parity white loses too many interior discs. 52.a7 53.b7 clearly doesn't help matters, as the southeast is still an odd area that white cannot touch. De Mattei finds the only winning move of 54.b7!! as 55.a7 creates a solid 7 row and now 56.g7 is playable. 55.a2 is worse, as 56.a1 forces 57.a7 anyway, and just gives white access to h8 followed by g8 at the end. Incidentally, another reason that 43.f1 44.g1 45.h2 was losing can be found by playing the actual sequence of the game after 43.h2 (44.h3 45.h7 46.b8 etc) instead. Even with white controlling the diagonal black has a tempo at g1 which makes all the difference.

Back to that 43.f1 44.g1;this pair of moves in itself was not losing. Silvola still has a potential win with 45.g8! While somewhat off the thread of line control and avoidance, this move sets up some very interesting parity wins for black. Also winning would have been 45.g2! 46. h3 (46.d8 47.g8! leads to a transposition of one of the 45.g8 parity wins mentioned above) 47.h1 48.h2 49.h7 50.g7, leading to the position below.

The solid white lines of the g-column and the b2-g7 diagonal make for an interesting play here with 51.g8! Of course white can wedge with 52.f8, but 53.a1! makes this threat to h8 worthless. Obviously allowing black to make the follow-up to a2 would give him a solid top two rows and the bulk of the A and B-columns, and 52.a2 53.h8 is still an 8-disc win for black.

So, sometimes playing for line avoidance can backfire, as it did for Andrea - and sometimes it's the only way to win, as it did for Allessandro. As it is in many aspects of the game, the important thing is to keep your balance.