In Graded Go Problems and in one book on fuseki, the authors write about creating a "framework" in the opening. Maybe it's just me but I find it odd to call it a framework when the most extended positions, and even the central ones, get attacked, split, enclosed or killed. Seems like a lot of these frameworks get ripped apart. This applies to both me and my opponents. Am I just not getting it?

It seems more that I'm creating potential zones of influence rather than a framework.

Or is that the idea?

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When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. - John Muir

That is the idea. This article from senseis is very useful to clear up any confusion regarding frameworks and what they really are: http://senseis.xmp.net/?Framework

I think of a framework as a territorial framework. If the player whose it is gets to make a few more plays to fill it in, it becomes territory.

Sphere of influence is not a bad term, but I think of that as a looser notion. A single wall can create a sphere of influence, for instance.

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When explaining general strategy to beginners, I call it 'turf'. As in, 'Remember, this area you have here isn't your territory yet. However, if black jumps in, you'll have the advantage for fights on your turf.'

Framework is just the word we use for things that aren't territory yet, but are loose sets of stones working together to outline a region.

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There is a continuum: sphere of influence >> framework >> territorial framework >> territory >> secure territory.

This derives from a Japanese view of go which has been borrowed in recent times by the Koreans and Chinese, and by us of course.

Where you draw the line between each phase is a matter of judgement, and even the same writer can dither. However, a couple of general points can be made.

1. Compared to Japanese players, Western players tend to regard as a moyo something which is really a sphere of influence - a wall with a stone remotely attached is not really a moyo.

2. Many Japanese writers make a distinction between a moyo (framework) and jimoyo (territorial framework), depending on how much it already looks like real territory. Some Japanese, however, add "territorial" just to emphasise that the ordinary word moyo is being used in a go sense. Where the distinction within go is made, however, you may find this is relevant to understanding, say, the games of Go Seigen. Whether this is something best left for advanced players you can decide for yourself, but you should at least be aware of the potential difference, and it would probably ultimately be useful not to confuse the two terms in English.

3. There can be a difference between a moyo (framework) and an omoyo (large framework). I think it is best not to regard this as part of the continuum. Of course a small moyo must come before a large one, but rather it is branching point (or a little bit of recursion, maybe). When you reach the moyo phase, you have a strategic choice. Go large for 1 buck extra. Either way, the next step on the continuum is territorial framework (jimoyo). It is obvious what is happening when an omoyo transmogrifies into a jimoyo. But the way a small moyo morphs into a jimoyo is one of the subtler things about go, and again something to watch for in Go Seigen's games, though it is common everywhere.

4. Overtones: "Framework" in English has connotations, perhaps, of something fairly solid. It may have plenty of gaps but as we are expecting to build on this framework, we expect it to be firm. Moyo does not have that connotation. Basically it means a "pattern", or an "outline", and is something flimsier.

Because moyo is an ordinary word in Japanese, Japanese go lexicographers don't feel the need to be too precise. The Nihon Ki-in Shojiten for example defines a moyo, rather poorly, as "A sphere of influence. It is not yet secure territory at present but will eventually become either a large moyo or a territorial moyo."

The vastly more reliable Hayashi Yutaka virtually contradicts the Shojiten version (which normally borrows its definitions from him, sometimes word for word). Hayashi says: "A territorial framework. It is not secure territory but it shapes out a territory and part of it appears as a sphere of influence."

Although it is tempting to be fuzzy about moyos, since writers are, it is still worth paying attention to the continuum as strategic decisions flow from this. For example, there is Takemiya's advice to treat moyos as a way of enticing the opponent in, whereupon you don't try to kill him but let him live small while you make overwhelming thickness. Clearly this can only work with moyos of a certain size. You also have to be aware of what options you have if your opponent messes with you, or if you have to mess with his moyo, and these also vary according to size and phase of the moyo. The phase of the game is relevant, too. The OP refers to the fuseki, where the flexibility to change plans mid-stream may still be available - but how do you handle a half-built moyo?

Moyos are a vastly interesting subject. You may wish to look up the entry in our Concepts Library: http://www.gogod.co.uk/Concepts/Concepts.htm