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Kobayashi Fuseki
   

The Kobayashi Fuseki (Kobayashi Formation) is the pattern for Black shown below. It is named after Kobayashi Koichi who used it steadily at one point in his career. This fuseki has been actively played for some 20 years now. It is similar to the Small Chinese fuseki in that Black sets up a specific formation between the White corner in the lower left and his own open komoku stone in the lower right as part of a strategy for playing against a later White approach move there. It is an aggressive, fighting strategy.

[Diagram]
Diag.: Kobayashi Fuseki

Black intends to use plays against an approach move in the lower right to naturally enclose the bottom side. At present the normal approach for White is the rather distant move at 'a'. This is because closer moves tend to allow Black to play more aggressively.

The position along the bottom has a defect at 'b' where White can invade rather easily. The main variation in the Kobayashi is for B to play 7 at 'c', attempting to eliminate the defect. However, this naturally gives White more options in the space around the lower right so opinions are divided on the placement of 7.

Like the Small Chinese, Black's ability to play this fuseki depends on White choosing not to answer B 5 with a pincer. So if you don't like playing against the Kobayashi, you have only yourself to blame if it shows up in your games! :-)

Charles Matthews' excellent [ext] series (now at [ext] Jan van der Steen's site) on the fuseki covers the Kobayashi in considerable detail starting in chapter 18.

DaveSigaty



This is a copy of the living page "Kobayashi Fuseki" at Sensei's Library.
(C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.