Number of different fuseki
Keywords: Opening, Theory
This page attempts to figure out how many different fuseki there are under a few simplifying assumptions:
Assumptions
- Only the first four moves in an even game are considered.
- Those first four moves are in a different corner each (so no Shusaku fuseki)
- The order of the first moves is not important; neither is the orientation of the board.
Calculations
Under these assumptions only two types of fuseki can occur: the parallel fuseki and the diagonal fuseki.
Naturally the number of fuseki varies along with the number of possible moves in each corner:
- If we only look at plays at the 3-4 point and the 4-4 point the number of different parallel fuseki is already 45 and the number of different diagonal fuseki is 24, for a total of 69.
- When we also take the 3-3 point into account the numbers grow to 136 for parallel and 72 for diagonal (208 in total).
- Finally, if we add the 3-5 point and 4-5 point, so that we have the normal moves, the number of different parallel openings is 2080 and the number of diagonal openings is 1048
A grand total of 3128!
Notes
- Actually, the numbers for the diagonal openings go up slower because asymmetric parallel plays come in twos, while asymmetric diagonal openings come in fours.
- It remains to be verified if each of these openings has been played seriously.