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ChangingFusekiDogmas

 

An Interesting Point About Direction
  Difficulty: Advanced   Keywords: Opening

[Diagram]
Diag.: Starting position

At the London Open last weekend I got an interesting comment on one of my games from Seong-June Kim (6 dan). I was black and my opponent approached at 1. The comment was that this was in the wrong direction.


[Diagram]
Diag.: Natural development

The natural development is for white to approach on the other side like this.

All white's stones seem to be working well together here.


BillSpight: The above is a bit unfair to Black. White has made one more play.


[Diagram]
Diag.: Natural development for both

All Black's stones seem to be working well together here, as well.



[Diagram]
Diag.: Exploiting white's mistake

Can black to anything about white's 'mistake'? Seong-June recommended this diagram. (sequence 1-a)

This leads to the situation below.


[Diagram]
Diag.: Resulting position

Now black has a nice formation across the top and sente.

Nothing earth-shattering, but I thought that this was interesting.

--Tim Hunt


I think that the line given makes the huge assumption that White would go into the 3-3 point in answer to the pincer. Not that that is so terrible, but the counter-pincer is also conceivable and there is also the ikken to consider (see also ChangingFusekiDogmas) How does that fact that White has approached high in the lower right affect this? --Simon Goss?



The general idea is approaching from the open side. Kobayashi Satoru no less introduced the "wrong" approach move in nirensei v nirensei a few years back.

Simon's point about other joseki (rather than 3-3 invasion) after the one point low pincer can be contrasted with a Michael Redmond remark in Go World about a closely related position, that "in practice you invade". --Charles Matthews?



Now there are plenty of other ways of playing, and no-one can say that they are better or worse than these. But what can be said, based on large numbers of game by expert players, is that these are very good formations to make with three stones.

Furthermore, they aim to do various things in future. Similarly, there are other things that are known to be good. Playing first in an empty corner, making a shimari, approaching a 3-4 stone, extending from a shimari, pincering, ... And these move also, mostly, have various aims.

Hmm. I don't think I am doing a vary good job of exlaining this. One final attempt. The attitude I favor is

"Someone told me that this was a good thing to do because it aims at that next, so I am going to try it in some of my games to see if I agree."

and an attitude I do not symathise with is

"No-one can prove to me that this move is wrong, and anyway it won't loose more than a few points, so I am going to play this."

Perhaps another key point is "Have a plan."

 Pieter Mioch says: do not have a plan. See ControversialStatements.

Question: Given that one can not find the optimal opening move, is it a waste of time to aspire to find the optimal opening move?

--Tim Hunt




[Diagram]
Diag.: White's "Leisurely" Approach

What about this alternative from Ishida vol. 3? He gives it as a leisurely approach when W is reluctant to enter at the 3-3. In this position if B links up the upper side with a play around 'a', W gets the first play in the lower right ('b' perhaps?). Both the 3-3 points on the upper side are still open and W seems to be dictating the course of the game more than B despite choosing the 'leisurely' line.

I think that B could put more pressure on W from further away in this case - with a 3-space pincer (7 in the diagram) for example.

--Dave Sigaty

Jonathan Cano: I thought the recent (i.e. last 5 years) fashion was to play the joseki that begins with 4 at c. White gets center influence while black gets territory on top. White frequently follows up with an invasion at d.


[Diagram]
Diag.: Black picks the wrong joseki

DaveSigaty: In the case where B has a stone on the 4-4 point in the upper right this joseki doesn't work well. After the usual pushing match along the top, W 9 puts B on the spot by making miai of 'a' and 'b'. This joseki is usually played when W has the upper right 4-4 point rather than B. This is discussed in chapter 4 of Kajiwara's "Direction of Play" (although in reference to the approach to a 3-4 stone in the upper left rather than 4-4). He played out the normal joseki(!) but blames himself quite a lot and actually spends 12 pages explaining what he should have done instead.


[Diagram]
Diag.: Other expectations

Therefore if W plays 1, she has to be prepared for B to choose something other than the usual pushing out along the top. Perhaps the most frightening possibility is the push and cut with 2 and 4. Although this is often thought of as an overplay it is certainly a possibility backed up by the marked B stone.


[Diagram]
Diag.: One Continuation

There are a lot of possible variations that will present opportunities for W to slip. A quiet line for both sides here would be for B to capture at 6 after W 3 followed by W connecting underneath with 4. But this would leave a white wall facing B's stone in the upper right. So instead B throws in 4 and after 7 suddenly plays 8. This makes miai of pulling out the ladder stone with 'a' in order to attack the three W stones in the center or playing atari at 'b' and 'd' then connecting at 'e' and chasing an even bigger lump of W stones while also building up a territory along the upper right.


BillSpight: It is true that the kakari from the top allows Black to make a DualPurposePlay? combining a pincer and an extension. There are other possibilities than the 1-space pincer. I kind of like the 3-space pincer, myself. :-)
However, to call that kakari a mistake seems a bit doctrinaire to me. The more natural development leads to a fairly simple fuseki, which is relatively easy to play for Black. The kakari from the top avoids that.
But there is an easier, and perhaps better way to avoid that, as well: a wariuchi.


[Diagram]
Diag.: Wariuchi




This is a copy of the living page "An Interesting Point About Direction" at Sensei's Library.
(C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.