Hello everyone, I'm back again after a brief hiatus. There have been a myriad of things going on lately that have kept me from playing. Also there was a certain frustration over lack of improvement. The usual situations.

However, I played a game today with this fellow. It was a free game. He didn't have a rank. But I accepted. Somehow I figured I'd get my butt kicked before I'd even played two stones. And why?

He played a fuseki I haven't ever seen, or I can't remember seeing. The game progressed 62 moves before I finally resigned. I was getting demolished, and I feel it's because I wasn't familiar with the fuseki. That and I felt I was also playing terribly.

That is, until the person I was playing told me they were a 1-2d. It was a relief to know it wasn't someone remotely close to my level. Either way, what is the best response to this? I'm guessing 5-4 wasn't it.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B 19x19 board
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . W . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . B . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . W . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , B . . . . , . . . . . B . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

_________________
Slava Ukraini!

I found about 25 pro games that started with those four moves. Most popular choice for black's 5th move was D3. It's likely going to lead to white getting a little of the corner and the left side, and black a bit of the corner and some of the bottom left. E4 seems to me like it's "floating in the air" a bit, and yields the whole corner to white (if white responds to E4 with D3), but it's also a viable move (W D3, B E3, W D2, B J3).

Welcome back.

Your loss doesn't seem to be an issue of fuseki. Some of your moves looked very strange to me.

E.g. move 7 at d5. e3 looks more natural to me here (but take this with a grain of salt, I am very weak at joseki).

Move 9 was an empty triangle. This is in the very most cases a bad shape. In the few cases where it is played by better players, it is mostly used to separate two of the opponent's groups. But in your game it wasn't.

Move 13 seemed too high. j4 or k4 seem to be better extensions from your wall.

Due to the fact that the e3 group has only three liberties, move 15 would have been better at g3.

Move 29 leaves behind a lot of cutting points. Why not simply connect at r4?

Move 33: Wrong direction: Atari at p5 would allow you to make a nice wall that could be completed by r9.

The rest is reading and counting liberties.

No. Your loss had nothing to do with the fuseki but everything to do with basic shapes and contact fights.

I agree with the others. Being in a weird fuseki can feel very confusing, but ultimately it is more fundamental mistakes which will make you lose the game. Your fifth move may or may not be best (it might be better at D3), but it's certainly playable. However, after below, :b7 is the move you must make to be your basic instinct. Whenever your opponent does a "shoulder hit on the bottom" (aka armpit hit, ), you should strongly consider the descent. It's not always right, but it's a basic instinct which is quite often correct.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm5
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , 1 . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . 2 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Also, in your game made your shape an empty triangle, which should be an indication to you that something is wrong. The shortage of liberties will come back to bite you in your game, plus the shape is just inefficient in general. E3 or E6 stand out to me as better moves, though I think white will still come out slightly better either way.

Anyway, don't take this too hard, I simply want to help you avoid these mistakes. It's obviously a lot easier to make mistakes in a situation you're unfamiliar with such as this joseki. But along with getting more familiar with this joseki, developing your instinctive "good shape" moves will help you improve immensely.

_________________
We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

Just two comments: I've heard before that studying fuseki is not really productive until mid-dan. I don't know how true this, but, as a kyu player, I know that games are not won or lost in the first few moves.

Second, focusing on improvement is a good thing I think, but don't focus on your rank. There's a difference. For example, it seems that you're uncomfortable with the 3-5 point. Using that opening yourself will probably help you improve, but you might lose some games in the meantime. Don't worry about those losses--focus on what you're learning.

That's true when it comes to certain "systems" like the Chinese or San-Ren-Sei but I think one should be aware of the big/urgent points in the Fuseki-stage, like playing at the borderlines of frameworks or keeping an access to the center.
I recently bought "Get Strong at the Opening" and wasn't even able to solve just half of the problems. That doesn't mean, I'm losing almost every game because of the opening but I do get tough games because I had a bad start.
I still think that reading and shape are far more important in Go but for the sake of having fun while playing, I guess one ought to be comfortable in the opening ^^

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

You're probably right. That opening just threw me off though. Because I wasn't too sure how to respond to that opening and it seemed to jumble up my thought process. But, I can't say I played too great either way. lol

_________________
Slava Ukraini!

Yes, definitely need to work on that. Especially if I intend on playing 1-2D players. Ha ha.

_________________
Slava Ukraini!

I guess I've been caught up in trying to maintain 11k ranking that I forgot it takes taking a few steps back to take a few large strides forward. You're definitely right. When I started experimenting back when I was a 13K it helped me gain to levels.

_________________
Slava Ukraini!