13x 13 Fuseki

This is taken from a comment on Quora by Corrin Lakeland

We don’t know.

There has not been many professional-level games on 13x13. There was a single tournament which is the main source of 13x13 opening theory: Pro 13x13 tournament

In terms of computer analysis you can’t trust anything coming from LeelaZero without building a weights file specifically for 13x13. That’s been done for 19x19, and 9x9 is simple enough that you can get excellent performance without it.

The most common opening is the 3–4 point (komoku), followed by the 5–3 point in the adjacent corner to form a rough shimari. I opened on 5–3 last time I played 13x13 and it worked out ok. My opponent approached it and I was able to tenuki as if my 5–3 had been an approach move.

I would note that on a 19x19 you get a good balance between territory and points on the 4th line, and the same applies to 9x9 on the 3rd line. However this does not apply on 13x13 because you end up with more points on the edge than the middle. This makes a territory-centric fuseki a natural choice, and so discourages the tengen opening which is so common in 9x9.

bugcat: The OGS games database probably contains thousands of 13x13 games to study.

bugcat: The two strongest 13x13 players on OGS are probably spicydragon and Sadaharu. I advise studying their games if you want fuseki ideas. Especially the eight correspondence games played between them so far, starting in 2021, which I presume represent some of the highest level 13x13 easily accessible. I'll even link them here:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Caveat: OGS uses 5.5 komi on 13x13 (regardless of whether the game is played with Chinese or Japanese ruleset)

Also, is there any evidence that these two OGS players are stronger than the top players on GoQuest?

bugcat: I don't know anything about GoQuest 13x13. spicydragon is a professional, Shibano Ryunosuke.