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.


[Diagram]

Kitani joseki

This is a simple example. Apart from Chen Zude, other pros hardly use Black 1 here.

See 3-4 point high approach, thrust.


[Diagram]

Another one

This joseki is also attributed to Kitani. Note that Black must play B3, otherwise White has a severe continuation at a.



Gronk: This is said a bit too forcefully. Isn't B3 at b also played if Black has an extention down the left side or intends to make one shortly (thereby defending the weakness at a)?

Charles The comment ... well, if Black didn't understand the need for B3, or b, he shouldn't play B1, really.

[Diagram]

Yasui Sanchi - Ito Matsujiro 1839-05-15

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.



Charles It occurred in the Kamakura jubango, for one thing.


[Diagram]

Yet another....

See 3-4 point high approach inside contact, sagari.


[Diagram]

Can't... stop...

W3 was invented by... yes, you guessed it. See ways to avoid the taisha (haha, as if this were much easier). Maybe it deserves its own page.


[Diagram]

After the press

W1 was played by Kitani in 1949. It has since been tried more than once by Kobayashi Koichi, and by Yamada Kimio. No standard continuation has emerged.


Charles Matthews and mgoetze


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