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Playing Styles And Player Types
    Keywords: Humour

(See also Professional Players' Go Styles.)

Playing Styles

  • The Bizarre Style: We've all played against people using this style before. They open on the 5-5 point and 3-6 point. Every move they make seems to defy convention. Yet for some reason finding a suitable play against it is always impossible. You end up losing by 20 points and are at a loss to see how you got so far behind. Not to be confused with the "Beginner Style" where bizarre moves are played, yet in the end, they are left with a couple small barely living groups.
  • The Anti-Bizarre Style: God does not play dice, He plays Go.
  • The Belligerent Style: Players using this can't seem to stay away from a fight. Forget any concept of a fuseki, two stones are plonked down in two random corners, then a violent fight is started. Every time you free yourself from one violent aggressive mess, another is started. The position on the board never grows evenly, always in huge amorphous blobs marking the site of each bitter struggle.
  • The Timid Style: This player has played a lot of games where they receive high handicaps, and as a result thinks that they're just bad at fighting. They assume that the opponent will stomp them in any fight even though the opponent is really only about as strong as they are.
  • The Fatalistic Style: This player assumes that any moyo will easily become solid territory. They rarely invade, and when an invasion is made, even if it would be more reasonable to take influence, they throw themselves at it like a rabid weasel diving into a drainpipe full of field mice.
  • The Jealous Style: This player constantly fears that the opponent has too much territory, and will therefore tend to immediately invade any moyo or large territory the opponent creates, rather than build up their own position.
  • The Extremely Jealous Style (Also known as The Extremely Unreasonable Style): This player illustrates what happens to devotees of the Jealous Style and the Belligerent Style when they become old and bitter, or occasionally, a very new player. Their view of the game is that you are not only forbidden to make territory, but you are also forbidden to make any live groups at all. So, even your smallest areas will be invaded on sight, and all your stones will be attacked endlessly from the moment you place them on the board. Often, this player is very skilled tactically and very experienced, which makes them very, very fast. The unwary are intimidated and get slaughtered, leaving them with a bad taste in their mouth. It is vital to remain calm and to punish followers of the Extremely Jealous Style, not only for your own sake and sanity, but also to defend the higher morals of the game. :-) Tristan

Player Types

  • The Oblivious Genius: This player has an incredible talent and understanding of the game and often plays sparkling moves that completely dumbfound the opponent. Their attention to detail is seriously lacking however and in almost every game, they will make one or two enormous oversights that allow them to lose the game. This one is often accused of sandbagging, as they will play games brilliantly only to get their rating smashed down by the most ridiculous mistakes. A close cousin of "Inconsistent", a player whose skill can vary by 10 or more stones depending on how they is feeling that day.
  • The Postman: (the one that always rings twice). In the endgame they play a dame. "Huh ? The guy plays dame ... Oh, right, yeah, next comes a sente dame. Let's play elsewhere." So the postman rings twice and plays the sente dame, to which you respond. They look at you, bemused: "Hm, you saw it, ay ?"
  • The Speed Merchant: This player plays very quickly and sharply. Their moves are often dubious, but they rely on intimidation to beat you. You try to play at your own pace, but end up playing as quickly as they do, making silly mistakes and falling into their traps because they are better at seeing things quickly than you are. Often, the Speed Merchant relies on the Jealous or the Extremely Jealous Style.
  • Studious Bragart: If anyone can come up with a better name for this style feel free to change it. This is the closest I could come, but am still not happy with it. These players can be really irritating. They study a lot and are arrogant beyond belief about their Go and Go knowledge, but don't actually spend all that much time playing. Is always quick to flaunt their so called "knowledge" and will constantly quote very strong players or pros. Usually has an overinflated opinion of their rank, and as a result, is seemingly afraid of internet go because it will probably tell them they are not as strong as they think they are. Despite being a font of knowledge, their Go is extremely boring. They play something like a mindless pattern matching automata. No fighting spirit whatsoever. Can be entirely thrown off if you play a move that is not overtly conventional, and when faced with a fierce attack, they collapse like a house of cards. While their play won't annoy you necessarily, it will almost assuredly bore you, and if you beat them they will make all kinds of excuses for why they lost, which probably will annoy you, especially when the follow-up is a constant stream of "know-it-all-ness".

Dieter: Ouch. Sounds like me and quite a few other Sensei's.

unkx80: Arrrgh, you got me there.

BlueWyvern: Naw, I don't think so. No one here seems all that arrogant. :-)

Ellegon: I'd like to add a playing style that I am "guilty" of. I would call it the Text-book style. You recognize that type when you see bits of good shape interspersed by huge and obvious cutting points, and heavy useless chains. It's when a beginner has started reading Go books and reading lessons on the internet, but hasn't figured out how to use them yet. It's mostly a transitional state, during which the player in question is left wondering what they did wrong when their whole moyo on the left side is gone... not that it ever happened to me though:)


Tristan Jones takes a slightly more serious look at playing styles.

I think people tend to gravitate toward one of two bases: they either prefer profit? (the territorial style] or they prefer influence, thickness and power, from which they aim to earn points in the course of middlegame fighting and the endgame.

There are various degrees to which these two fundamental styles can be taken. At one extreme, Kobayashi Koichi likes solid territory and his fuseki and middlegame decisions emphasise this very strongly, to the extent that his Go can appear somewhat "stingy" and unspectacular (it's certainly effective, though, as his impressive list of titles proves). Takemiya Masaki, represents the other extreme. He once famously derided Kobayashi's style as "subway Go"[1], and created the beautiful, but inimitable, "cosmic style" in which he generates huge moyos in the centre, while taking a somewhat relaxed attitude to his opponent's profit. This style has also proved itself extremely effective: Takemiya has not only earned the adulaltion of Go fans across the world, but even more importantly, he has won many titles. Perhaps, occupying positions closer to the middle of the spectrum, are players like Otake Hideo, who stresses thickness in the opening and uses it gradually to overhaul his opponent's lead and Yi Chang Ho, who often takes early profit, but is not, repeat not, an easy customer to deal with in a fight!

There are different interpretations, if you like, of the two styles, which become new styles in their own right. Sakata Eio and, later, Cho Chikun, liked to grab territory, while leaving groups exposed to attack, relying on superb reading and defensive skills to save the weak groups while maintaining sufficient territory to win shinogi. This kind of Go might be dubbed the "greedy style". Another distinctive style is that of O Meien, whose Go is characterised by imaginative openings in which speed is of the essence, original shapes (Meienisms) and heavy-duty fighting skill.

So, what about your style? As I stated above, people gravitate either to thickness or to territory. How much of this do you think is personal choice and how much is unconscious bias? (Please discuss below.) My feeling is that below pro level, one has only limited choice in one's style: I have found that I win most often when I stress influence over early profit, and that even when I play moves especially designed to take territory, I somehow end up producing central moyos -- I have won a surprising number of games in which I played two 3-3 points only to end up building large-scale territory in the centre. Do you think it is wise to copy your favourite pro's moves? For myself, I would like to make Meienisms, but suspect that I would end up only creating difficulties for myself because I'm not O Meien the 9 dan professional go player, after all, but Tristan Jones the musicologist :-)

I look forward to reading people's responses and thoughts upon this fascinating area of go appreciation!

Alex Weldon: I disagree that it's impossible to have one's own style below pro level, although perhaps at weaker levels, it's more a matter of what you're good at and what you don't understand, rather than a choice of style. On my personal page, I describe my style a bit; in a nutshell, I like to play the Manchurian fuseki, build big side territories and moyos, then invite invasion to build strength and use it to wipe out any territory my opponent has made.

I definitely play differently than most players my level (6k*) on IGS, and there are several people I know by name (whether they remember me or not, I don't know) because they have their own styles. "Takakiyo," for instance, likes to cut the board up into lots of small groups of his and his opponent's, because he's very good at life and death; he rarely takes much territory, but instead relies on his ability to eventually kill something. "Yaoyu," on the other hand, likes to play second line "submarine" moves inside your prospective territory, letting you build a central moyo (which he'll later invade) and denying you the opportunity to build anything at all along the edge.

Tristan Jones: Sorry, Alex, I did not mean that one cannot have a style of one's own, but rather that I suspect that one has little choice in what that style will be. So, for example, a fundamentally "territory" person will unconsciously be biased toward profit even when he uses influence-based moves in the fuseki. Your friend "Yaoyu", for instance, will probably remain aggressively territorial and inclined to invade early even if he gets a lot stronger, although the way this shows itself might become somewhat sublter.

Alex Weldon: True, but do you really think the pros "choose" their style? I suspect that a style is always developed naturally, rather than chosen. I seriously doubt that, say, Takemiya Masaki could overnight decide to play territorially and be as good at it as his peers.

I imagine that whatever style you start to develop during your days as a kyu player will be gradually refined and improved upon until you are as good as you'll get, and this is probably true in the case of the pros, too. If they played territorially during their days as a student, they'll probably play that way as a pro as well.

It would, however, be very interesting to see a friendly game between say, Takemiya and Kobayashi, where they agreed beforehand to try their best to play in the other person's style, just to see how flexible pros really are. :)

Tristan Jones: On the contrary, pros are able to choose and change their styles. What I said above about style being the result of unconscious biases applies much more to amateurs. Kobayashi Koichi was a very aggressive attacker early in his career, but achieved his greatest successes after he adopted his no-nonsense "subway syle" of territorial Go. Similarly, "Killer" Kato Masao became "Endgame" Kato later in his career. Finally, look at Kitani Minoru as an example of a player whose Go changed dramatically over the decades.

I do agree with your other comment: but I can't imagine Takemiya being able to bring himself to play like Kobayashi. Besides, as far as I'm aware, they're not the best of buddies, so that kind of friendly match would never happen, sadly.


[1] The rationale for the "subway Go" nickname, in Takemiya' own words: Subway Go, because it takes where you want to go, but you don't get to see any scenery. -- DJ



This is a copy of the living page "Playing Styles And Player Types" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.