1

I like to play double sansan

3-3, huh? Have fun trying to develop that.

Double sansan it is then. I tend to not think too much in the first few moves.

This is gonna be one of those boring games.

Another idea I considered is a wedge on top. The attraction is that it would scramble the board so that large areas are harder to form, which I think is good for double sansan. But I'm less comfortable with the results after a wedge, so I'll just play a more familiar move and wait.

Next I'm going to play K16, unless he plays there next.

Not confident about the exact moves, but I think black will spend another move on top and I'll play near the right side star point. Of course, black has other alternatives such as pincer on the left side, but top seems to be the most important area (followed by right side) here.

I thought that perhaps black will play the 3-3 point first, but this makes more sense as he retains the ability to pincer. I still want the right side - it's not really a great relationship with my sansan stone, but I don't really want black to get a double wing, and I want a high stone to limit black's top potential. Playing any closer to my lower right corner will probably make a move from black's top right too good, and playing further would leave me in a tougher situation later if black pincers - it is likely that both would be playable, but I'm comfortable with the distance here.

Let's make something happen... I really dislike this kind of game.

Yeah, a big issue with sansan is that tenuki from approaches is often a bit painful. But here I really don't want to respond with something like F3 because then something like C12/C13 becomes annoying.

I actually thought black would play something like E3 instead (mostly because I was afraid of those kind of double approaches). This is the other alternative.

I'm not familiar with this situation (I don't tenuki from C6 often). My first instincts are this extension and the D2 second-line hane. I don't like the result after the hane if black backs off at E3.

I anticipate something like this:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm11 Prisoners:
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . O . X . . . . . X . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . 8 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 6 7 x . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 4 5 . . . . . , . . d . . , . . . |
$$ | . . O 3 . c . . . . . . . . . . O . . |
$$ | . . b 0 a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

I haven't made up my mind if I want to crawl once more after 18 here (probably not since black will likely tenuki). Also, black might play at "x" instead of 15, but I suspect that's a bit too aggressive so black probably won't play it (my excuse to not read it unless he plays it).


The opening now already feels a bit better for black :p But I don't think the difference is big enough for complexity to be a significant consideration in choosing my moves. I'll bid my time for now.

It's as if he invaded my corner and I want sente (which I do, conveniently.)

Just as I was about to submit C5 I realized that this is a transposed sansan invasion joseki XD

I'm also not familiar with this, but I do remember that the keima is better than the extend for some reason.

Oops. I completely forgot how this joseki goes. This looks like it works!