How do you choose your opening?

[Bantari]

I think it would be really interesting to make some kind of statistical study about decisive mistakes.
For example - where do they happen by level. Or by category by level. Stuff like that.
Speaking of applied value of research - this might have value.

I know that everybody makes a lot of mistakes in all over the place, so that's trivial, but I am thinking of taking the magnitude of mistakes into account wrt the game outcome.

I am not really sure how this could be done without manually going through a lot of games, but still... interesting.

[Bantari]

Amateurs make so many strategic and reading mistakes during the middle game and end game that the opening pales in comparison.

If they understood the opening better, they would not make so many strategic mistakes later on.

If they understood the opening better, and thus made less mistakes later, they would have been at higher level - and at that level the understanding might have caught up to them and be lacking again - and so the cycle would repeat. Its circular, in this sense, and so uninteresting.

The question is: with the level and knowledge they have, where do the most game-deciding mistakes happen? Is it opening that decides the game or is it later? In other words - if 'by chance' they play slightly better opening, do they then (almost) automatically win the game, or do they still manage to mess it up later? In other words: if I play a better opening, should my opponent just resign and save time?

I guess it depends on the level, and the magnitude of opening mistake, but for most amateurs I would say that the decisive mistakes come after the opening most of the time. So coming worse off out of the opening, while not something to be happy about, is not necessarily a tragedy.

[snorri]

Two of many, but I think your hope to put the words in the mouths of professionals is perhaps misdirected.

Welcome back. We missed you.

[SmoothOper]

Amateurs make so many strategic and reading mistakes during the middle game and end game that the opening pales in comparison.

If they understood the opening better, they would not make so many strategic mistakes later on.

If they understood the opening better, and thus made less mistakes later, they would have been at higher level - and at that level the understanding might have caught up to them and be lacking again - and so the cycle would repeat. Its circular, in this sense, and so uninteresting.

The question is: with the level and knowledge they have, where do the most game-deciding mistakes happen? Is it opening that decides the game or is it later? In other words - if 'by chance' they play slightly better opening, do they then (almost) automatically win the game, or do they still manage to mess it up later? In other words: if I play a better opening, should my opponent just resign and save time?

I guess it depends on the level, and the magnitude of opening mistake, but for most amateurs I would say that the decisive mistakes come after the opening most of the time. So coming worse off out of the opening, while not something to be happy about, is not necessarily a tragedy.

By chance when you say "they" and "them" do you mean "I" and "me"? As in royal They, what a curious way of thinking. Yes, you could expect that for most amateurs, however you seem caught in this paradox where you are both a rank beginner and weak amateur at the same time, it could be a terminal illness I'm afraid.

[snorri]

Smoothoper: do you actually know anything about how often Lee plays different fuseki or his success with them? You appear to be just pulling all of these claims out of thin air.

Yep, pulling things out of thin air.

It will save some time if you just change your avatar to a troll.

[Bantari]

If they understood the opening better, they would not make so many strategic mistakes later on.

If they understood the opening better, and thus made less mistakes later, they would have been at higher level - and at that level the understanding might have caught up to them and be lacking again - and so the cycle would repeat. Its circular, in this sense, and so uninteresting.

The question is: with the level and knowledge they have, where do the most game-deciding mistakes happen? Is it opening that decides the game or is it later? In other words - if 'by chance' they play slightly better opening, do they then (almost) automatically win the game, or do they still manage to mess it up later? In other words: if I play a better opening, should my opponent just resign and save time?

I guess it depends on the level, and the magnitude of opening mistake, but for most amateurs I would say that the decisive mistakes come after the opening most of the time. So coming worse off out of the opening, while not something to be happy about, is not necessarily a tragedy.

By chance when you say "they" and "them" do you mean "I" and "me"? As in royal They, what a curious way of thinking. Yes, you could expect that for most amateurs, however you seem caught in this paradox where you are both a rank beginner and weak amateur at the same time, it could be a terminal illness I'm afraid.

Just continuing from Bill's usage of 'they' to make for a smooth flow of the argument.
Sorry if this is not very clear. Please feel free to ask me any time if something else is not clear top you. IMs are good for that. I will try to help.

[shapenaji]

My fuseki is not good. (It's also not completely awful)

But there are ways to use just about any opening. If you can find synergy in your frameworks as you progress to the middlegame, that's worth a lot.


Obviously, a good opening helps, but not nearly so much as a strong middle-game until around pro level. I don't care how good your opening is, unless I lose a fight, I'm not resigning.

The reason why opening is so important for pros is that early advantages will compound. For amateurs, it's almost impossible for a 10 point deficit in the opening to be carried to the endgame (Partially because amateur judgement of the score in the opening is very difficult. Amateurs simply can't see the lay of the land to leverage a poor opening into a good middlegame position)

If you can get out of the opening with interesting frameworks to grow, and ways to make your stones work together, you're good to go.

Basically, I think the marginal value for additional opening study drops exceptionally quickly.

But if you're pro? Even diminishing returns can be the difference between a win and a loss.

[Eerika Norvio]

By chance when you say "they" and "them" do you mean "I" and "me"? As in royal They, what a curious way of thinking. Yes, you could expect that for most amateurs, however you seem caught in this paradox where you are both a rank beginner and weak amateur at the same time, it could be a terminal illness I'm afraid.

User's rank does not matter. It's the content of their posts and the level of their argumentation.

Which, in your posts, isn't very high.

[SmoothOper]

Smoothoper: do you actually know anything about how often Lee plays different fuseki or his success with them? You appear to be just pulling all of these claims out of thin air.

Yep, pulling things out of thin air.

It will save some time if you just change your avatar to a troll.

No need to use facts when arguing with ignorance. If people wanted to conduct a valid argument about the merits of Fuseki, maybe they wouldn't start off with a paradox about how beginners aren't strong therefore Fuseki is worthless and continue arguing that they needn't learn Fuseki.

[Prodigious]

No need to use facts when arguing with ignorance. If people wanted to conduct a valid argument about the merits of Fuseki, maybe they wouldn't start off with a paradox about how beginners aren't strong therefore Fuseki is worthless and continue arguing that they needn't learn Fuseki.

You might want to work on your reading comprehension a bit if this is how you have been reading the conversation in this thread.

[Eerika Norvio]

If people wanted to conduct a valid argument about the merits of Fuseki, maybe they wouldn't start off with a paradox about how beginners aren't strong therefore Fuseki is worthless and continue arguing that they needn't learn Fuseki.

Nobody has said that. You're making straw men all the time.

"Least important of the three main stages of game", what is what I said about fuseki, doesn't mean "worthless".
"Kyu or low dan" doesn't mean "beginner".
And finally, no one has said that you don't need to learn Fuseki, either.

[SmoothOper]

No need to use facts when arguing with ignorance. If people wanted to conduct a valid argument about the merits of Fuseki, maybe they wouldn't start off with a paradox about how beginners aren't strong therefore Fuseki is worthless and continue arguing that they needn't learn Fuseki.

You might want to work on your reading comprehension a bit if this is how you have been reading the conversation in this thread.

Naw, I am pretty sure that sums up the thread, except for that part where I mis-quoted Ed Lee from a different thread about how club players are weak amateurs and their first five moves don't matter because they don't know Fuseki.

[Eerika Norvio]

Well importance of fuseki actually isn't even the topic of this thread.

To go towards reasons of choosing a certain opening, I play different openings in less serious games. Sanrensei and responding keima approach by keima cap, or kosumi towards the center, makes for a good moyo game. Great wall of China is nice to play too. Or extremely influence-oriented strategies in general. I feel they're unpredictable, however, so in tournament games I just play komokus as black and hoshi as white, flexibility being the only plan.

Hm, I just remembered another nice opening for black, if you can get cross fuseki. Two hoshi and tengen. "Because the normal sanrensei is overconcentrated"

[speedchase]

No need to use facts when arguing with ignorance.

[thirdfogie]

I'm not sure how I choose my opening, but I can say what openings I have used and what may have influenced me.

When I started playing, 40 years ago, I mostly used the Orthodox fuseki with Black, but sometimes
varied with Fujisawa-Hosai style (san-san and a kogeima shimari), if allowed by the opponent.
The Hosai style was taken was from his game against Ishida Yosihio in The 1971 Honinbo Tournament.
With White, I usually played parallel hoshi, but occasionally san-san and hoshi (Sakata style).

After I began to play again last year, I used a lot of small Chinese fuseki with black, which got good results
in tournaments because opponents treated it like the normal low Chinese. Now they have learnt not to do that,
so I recently switched to Shusaku style. That's because I am slowly working through a book of Go Seigen's games:
I started at the beginning, and have yet to reach the point where he turns 16. Many of these early games feature the Shusaku fuseki.
With white, I now mostly play parallel hoshi, and try to concentrate after that on responding to the opponent's plans.
However, if the opponent opens with parallel hoshi, I play hoshi and opposing komoku to break the symmetry.

I agree that the opening does not make much difference at my SDK level, but I still have to choose something, so the original question has meaning.