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Kitani's joseki
Keywords: Joseki
Kitani Minoru's career divides into several stages, as far as style goes. After about 1940 he played in a very territorial way. As part of that style, which involves a need for difficult fighting in the middle game, he produced a number of innovations. Some were incorporated into the main stream, while others remained effectively his 'personal joseki'. Therefore to say that some variation is a Kitani joseki implies mostly that Kitani played it in games - he remained a top player in the 1950s, despite poor health and the general feeling that he hadn't fulfilled his potential, considering talent alone. It seems that the 1960s saw the popularisation of joseki dictionaries (boiled-down versions of the Igo Daijiten), posing the compilers problems of definition of what was joseki. Since individual players (Kajiwara was another) played lines not generally accepted, that was one problem. Go Seigen and Hashimoto Utaro innovated freely. Sakata favoured certain lines in order to get a middle game that suited his problem-solving style based on accurate reading. In that context, isolating 'Kitani joseki' was a way to pay respect to the moves, without claiming that they had the force of professional consensus behind them. Go Seigen, Kitani, Hashimoto, and Sakata, in this respect, exemplify the saying that there are no joseki for a meijin.
This is a simple example. Apart from Chen Zude, other pros hardly use Black 1 here. See 3-4 point high approach, thrust.
This joseki is also attributed to Kitani. Note that Black must play
Gronk: This is said a bit too forcefully. Isn't
Dave: Any idea why this one was ascribed to Kitani? There are various 19th century games that include this variation. Shusaku, Shuho, and Shusai had all played it before Kitani.
See 3-4 point high approach inside contact, sagari.
This is a copy of the living page "Kitani's joseki" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |