Shusaku fuseki

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Chinese: 秀策流 (xiù cè liú)
Japanese: 秀策流 (Shūsaku Ryū)
Korean: -

[Diagram]

The Shusaku fuseki

Although the basic form had been played many times before, the Shusaku Fuseki rightly bears Shusaku's name, because he developed it into a full fuseki strategy through his lifetime. The fuseki was most popular in the Edo and early Meiji era. The popularity of the Shusaku fuseki fell away as komi was introduced for White, changing the strategic goals of white and black.



The classic form of the Shusaku fuseki was made by the moves B1-B3-B5, and W4 or W6 as a kakari (allowing black to play in a third corner with B5). The opening was commonly allowed by white to evolve into this position, because playing a parallel fuseki that allowed black a shimari was seen as giving black too easy a game.

After this initial setup was created, black followed up with the famous Shusaku kosumi at B7, providing black with a solid and flexible group. Black's strategic goal in the Shusaku fuseki was to build solid and thick shapes, so as to prevent white from over complicating the game.

The popularity of this opening pattern waned after the introduction of komi, since White was not as pressed to play aggressively. Furthermore, the Shusaku kosumi of B7 is now viewed as too slow for Black in komi games. However, the Shusaku kosumi has seen increased play as White in contemporary komi go, yet still remains a less common kakari reply.


This is a copy of the living page "Shusaku fuseki" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2012 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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