Opening

    Keywords: Opening, Go term

Chinese: 布局 (bùjú)
Japanese: 序盤 (joban)
Korean: 포석 (p’osŏk = poseok)

The opening of the game is means the initial disposition of stones.
The Japanese term for the beginning phase, joban, isn't commonly used in English.

A general, basic introduction to the opening starts at About the Opening.

Some opening patterns are more common than others, and have received names. Most named openings derive their name from the pattern adopted by Black. The following pages list an overview of fuseki patterns, all fuseki pages at SL and more thoughts about fuseki.


Joban states that Joban means opening phase of the game. Here we also have a term opening. What is the difference? Is Joban the initial moves till the middle game begins, in which a fuseki is played out? In other words does this correspond to the Chess idea of the opening (joban) which might be a French, Nimzo-Indian, Sicilian (fuseki) etc.? If this difference is correct, do the Chinese and Korean terms here refer the the starting phase of a game (joban) or to a particular common pattern (fuseki) ?? -- Velobici

kokiri it's probably one of those Japanese differences that really only matter to pedantic Japano-linguo-philes (guilty as charged), but my understanding of the two terms (which I've never really thought as far as to put into words before now, so be warned) is that Joban is the basic term meaning opening, as in opening, middlegame, endgame; whilst the fuseki lies within the Joban in so far as it represents the conceptual, strategic ideas behind the first moves that determine how the game will progress, so that Joban is factual - like the first 30 or 50 moves say, whilst fuseki is more concept-based, descriptive maybe. and breathe - does that make any sense, I'm not sure. <edit> I just looked at infoseek.co.jp and they have fuseki as: 囲碁で、序盤に全局的な構想に立って石を置くこと which I amateurishly offer as in the game of go, during the opening (Joban), the act of playing stones from a whole-board perspective. I should add that in my experience, problem books often seem to call a section of opening problems fuseki problems if they are even game problems, but Joban problems in the case of handicap games.

Velobici Currently, we have fuseki as an alias to opening (this page, with joban as the Japanese) and a distinct page called joban. Would love to find a reasonable "...game" name to parallel the middle game and end game pages....that would be joban. Then we need a page for opening as in fuseki. Perhaps a disambiguation page is the way to go. Opening provides a summary of each and points the reader to both fuseki and joban pages.

Bill: I already de-aliased fuseki. My proposal for a dictionary style treatment of opening is on the /Discussion page.


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