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Big Wall
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    Keywords: Opening

[Diagram]
Diag.: The Big Wall

The Big Wall is an opening strategy invented by Bruce Wilcox and is explained in his book Ezgo - oriental strategy in a nutshell. It is a kind of fuseki experiment. The idea is to build a big wall of stones stretching from one side to the other, defying all conventional opening strategy. Seemingly silly, it is remarkably effective. Two reasons: one is that if the opponent sticks with conventional opening moves, they turn out to be suboptimal. According to a professional player, White should prevent the wall from being perfected. The other is that your opponent will tend to underestimate you, because you play such "silly" moves.

Try this at home !

-- Dieter Verhofstadt (1k)



Bill Spight: How about an example of the suboptimality of a conventional opening move?

Dieter: Hehe. You got me there, Bill. I'm merely quoting Wilcox. I've just learned the word "suboptimal" and I was eager to use it. #:-7

Chess Whiz: I've been trying this opening a bit, and I think it's an interesting way to start a fight in the opening. After B9, just invade like crazy! :-)

Hu: A third reason for its effectiveness: Black often ends up with only one group.


Charles Matthews I doubt this opening was actually invented by Wilcox. I have seen references to its use by Marseille (?spelling - by the time it has been written in katakana and then romanised ...), an American player active in the 1950s.


A variation

[Diagram]
Diag.: The Big Wall #2

In practice this variation seems very effective for Black, If White plays conventionally, any attacking moves made begin to create interesting positions for Black everywhere.



I've only seen it with 1 & 3 at (7,10) & (13,10) like this:

[Diagram]
Diag.: 19x19 diagram


Bob McGuigan

I second Bill Spight's request for examples of sub-optimal moves. To me this "big wall" looks hard to use. If white closes corners Black will have a hard time making effective use of the wall. Also, the wall itself is thin, consisting entirely of large knight spaces between stones. I imagine it is a problem for a lot of white players because they aren't used to dealing with non-standard moves. If it were really so good I think there would be a lot more pros playing it.



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This is a copy of the living page "Big Wall" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.