5-5 point

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  Difficulty: Advanced   Keywords: Opening, Joseki
[Diagram]

Opening at a 5-5 point

The 5-5 point has occasionally been used as the first play in the corner. The idea was experimented with during the New Fuseki era, often with the intention of forming a three-stone enclosure by adding further stones at the points marked a (pillbox). More recently, 5-5 point openings have been used with success by Yamashita Keigo (especially in the Gosei tournament -- a pun on the word go, which also means "5" in Japanese).

Dave Sigaty: Pieter Mioch has a nice introduction to the 5-5 point in part VII of his [ext] gentle joseki series.


[Diagram]

Donzet-Takemiya

There are not so many chances to see 5-5 patterns in action in pro games. This is from a fun 'even' game between the French amateur 5 dan Frederic Donzet, and Takemiya. Something like this happened, with Takemiya playing a high wedge as a reduction of Black's side of the board, concentrating on getting out to the centre and leaving Black with aji around a.

This was played at a party after the 2000 WAGC; the interest is that Takemiya had clearly observed one of Donzet's games using this type of 5-5 opening, and wanted to make a comment in a pleasant way. So Takemiya made a sanrensei against 5-5 points and watched how Black tried to develop them.

Charles Matthews

Any .sgf of this game?

Fhayashi

Well, no. Like I said, it was a casual game at a party. Charles


DaveSigaty: There was an interesting game using 5-5 handicap stones in November 2002 between Kato Masao, Honinbo and Samejima Ichiro, Amateur Honinbo. Here is the beginning of the game.


[Diagram]

joseki

Andre Engels: Not much joseki is known for the 5-5 point, not only because it is played rarely, but also because common wisdom seems to be that a 5-5 point is better left alone than approached in most cases. This seems to be the only variation that has been played often enough by professionals to be considered joseki.


Kendrah : what are the pro's and con's of opening at the 55 point? I find it kinda a fun concept, but I don't think I know enough about go to realize if it helps or hurts me. thanks :D

Alex Weldon: Well, the pros are that it will confuse many opponents, and that you will likely control the center of the board. The cons are that you will not have any solid territory for the early part of the game and will have to be strong at building moyos and attacking invasions in order to make up for that. It's good for players with a fighting style.


See also 3555 enclosure.


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This is a copy of the living page "5-5 point" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2005 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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