Flowing Fuseki

ez4u · Post by **ez4u** » Sun May 06, 2012 10:50 pm

Flowing Fuseki - Introduction

Inspired by some of the things on Flowing Data, I have been exploring the use of the information in GoGoD to visually represent the ebb and flow of different fuseki/joseki ideas over the last three hundred and fifty years, give or take. Starting with this post, I expect to present a few of the trends that can be seen.

First a couple of caveats. The Christmas 2011 update of GoGoD has 65,000+ even games, which form the base population that I used. This is not very many spread across such a long period of time and, indeed, we have very few games from various earlier periods. So the pictures presented are really impressions at best. Nevertheless, I hope everyone can enjoy speculating on what the players of the past were interested in and why their choice of fuseki changed over time.

(Larger version)
The older even games in GoGoD are almost all Japanese. The database contains quite a lot of historical Chinese games played with the traditional cross-hoshi initial position, but I have filtered those out. Only the last twenty years really contain a broad mixture of games from China, Korea, and Japan. This is natural given the development of professional Go, but it means that some themes are potentially reflections of the change in the source of games.

That First Basic Choice by Black

(Larger Image) Here we can easily see the early dominance of 3-4 and the rise of 4-4 in the New Fuseki era. More interesting, because less understood (at least by me) was the resurgence of 3-4 in the 60's and that it was really the 70's that made B1 on 4-4 the dominant theme in Go. BTW, the later rise and fall of 3-4 around 2006 is driven by the alternate form of the mini-Chinese with the marked stone below on 3-4 rather than 'a'.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$B $$ --------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . , X . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . a . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

White Responds:

To B1 on 3-4

(Larger Image) Note that naming all the variations on this graph required me to invent some new nomenclature. However, I haven't written down definitions of them all yet so that has to come in a later post. The problem is that I can't even remember them all myself so I have to re-research my data! RSN...trust me. :blackeye:

To B1 on 4-4

(Larger Image)

When we try to go beyond this point we are confronted with the fact that Go is played by two opponents. Therefore if we wish to look at the trends of say Black's fuseki choices, we have to be aware that as often as not White is deliberately playing to frustrate Black's plans. It becomes somewhat of a challenge to decide which games fall within a single theme, for example, "mini-Chinese fuseki". There are the various flavors chosen by Black: mini, micro, upper right 4-4, upper right 3-4, etc. There are also various counter-plays by White. Which fit into the theme and which do not? Naturally I will present my own ideas. :-)

In future posts I will try to illustrate or at least explain what goes into each and then everyone can disagree as they like.

As a last picture for this post, here is the graph of nirensei and sanrensei by Black. The most interesting thing to me is that despite the famous role of these in the history of modern Go and the great popularity among amateurs, sanrensei especially has never been a major fuseki choice by the pros!

(Larger Image)

kusto · Post by **kusto** » Mon May 07, 2012 5:41 am

so pretty

emeraldemon · Post by **emeraldemon** » Mon May 07, 2012 6:40 am

If you're taking requests, I'd be very interested to see the trends of enclosures over time. It feels like the 3-4 5-3 enclosure has been consistently popular over time, but I'm curious about its relative popularity vs. the high enclosure or ogeima (or even say the 4-4 6-3 enclosure).

gowan · Post by **gowan** » Mon May 07, 2012 8:02 am

Very interesting! It would be nice to look a little farther into the fuseki but there are so many ways that even the first six moves can be played that it's probably impossible to go that far with this sort of analysis. It seems to me that there has been something of a resurgence of interest in the ogeima shimari recently but ...

Sverre · Post by **Sverre** » Mon May 07, 2012 8:51 am

ez4u wrote:As a last picture for this post, here is the graph of nirensei and sanrensei by Black. The most interesting thing to me is that despite the famous role of these in the history of modern Go and the great popularity among amateurs, sanrensei especially has never been a major fuseki choice by the pros!

I would call 10% in periods a fairly major fuseki. How does this compare to, say, orthodox or low chinese?

RBerenguel · Post by **RBerenguel** » Mon May 07, 2012 2:42 pm

I'm glad to find a fellow reader of flowingdata. Just today I was trying to make my own dynamic time series visualization with D3 (and finally made it with a test data set, wooo!) And by the way, awesome results and study!

ez4u · Post by **ez4u** » Mon May 07, 2012 10:10 pm

emeraldemon wrote:If you're taking requests, I'd be very interested to see the trends of enclosures over time. It feels like the 3-4 5-3 enclosure has been consistently popular over time, but I'm curious about its relative popularity vs. the high enclosure or ogeima (or even say the 4-4 6-3 enclosure).

Here is a quicky that I already had in my spreadsheet. It pulls together some patterns for Black that use shimari. It does not exactly fit your interest but has some interesting points nevertheless...

(Larger Image)

First, the group of blue areas that dominate the left side of the graph are all variations where Black uses B3 to make an immediate shimari. It surprises me that this has been such a long-lasting and significant idea. When was the last time you saw it analyzed in a fuseki book? :blackeye:

Note that the blue complex represents 10% or more of even games in every period from 1800-19 through 1945-49 (max. 21% in 1820-39 and again in 1880-99).

Second, the green area labled "Standard" (because I didn't know another name for it) is this fuseki:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$B "Standard" Pattern $$- - - - - - - - - - - - + $$. . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . 5 . . . . | $$. . , . . . . . , 1 . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . , . . . . . , . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . , . . . . . , . . . | $$. . . . . . . . 3 . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . | $$- - - - - - - - - - - - +[/go]

It peaked at 22% of all even games in 1960 and represented more than 10% in all eleven years from 1960 through 1970. It reappeared in the 80's with 10%+ in 1980 and then 1983 through 1986.

Third, the orthodox has reached 10% three times: first in 1978, again in 1995, and then for the four-years 2007 through 2010. I combined the high and low-shimari versions of the orthdox in this graph (sorry about that!).

Fourth, the Old Kobayashi is the pattern below, including the original flavor where B5 was played high at "a". It never quite broke the 10% barrier.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$B Search Pattern $$- - - - - - - - - - - - - - + $$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . , . . . . . 1 . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . a 5 . . | $$. . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$- - - - - - - - - - - - - - +[/go]

Finally, what I termed RegulationS in the graph is where Black and White play the regulation fuseki and then Black makes a shimari with B5. Both the high and low plays at "a" and "b" below were seen. The

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$B Regulation Fuseki with Shimari $$+ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . a . . . . | $$| . . . , . . . . . , . . . . b , 1 . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . 3 , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$+ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - +[/go]

ez4u · Post by **ez4u** » Mon May 07, 2012 10:34 pm

Sverre wrote:
ez4u wrote:As a last picture for this post, here is the graph of nirensei and sanrensei by Black. The most interesting thing to me is that despite the famous role of these in the history of modern Go and the great popularity among amateurs, sanrensei especially has never been a major fuseki choice by the pros!

I would call 10% in periods a fairly major fuseki. How does this compare to, say, orthodox or low chinese?

Putting together good graphs for the chinese, mini-chinese, and others are more difficult and will take a while yet. The reason is the various countermeasures that should be included to give a full picture of the impact of the fuseki IMHO. Meanwhile let me add the following which both illustrates why 10% is nothing special and also shows why Nirensei gets my vote for most dominant fuseki of all time... just not for Black!

(Larger Image)

As we can see, in 1996 Nirensei was played in over 50% of all even games... by White. In addition there are ten other years (so far) where it accounted for more than 40% of all even games.

It is also interesting why it declined below 40% in the years around 2005. The answer to that, however, belongs in the future graphs on the mini-chinese. :study:

ez4u · Post by **ez4u** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 5:36 am

One thing about the fuseki that I believe is that "systems" are written/talked about disproportionately because they are easy to write/talk about. By systems I mean things like the Shusaku fuseki, Chinese fuseki, Mini-Chinese, etc. I am always interested to investigate them (starting from a contrarian bias) to see what real-world experience has to tell us. The comments in the Nirensei thread had me thinking about the evolution of the use of shimari and so on. Since I also wanted to post on the Shusaku, here we go... :blackeye:

(Larger Image)
This graph is made using placeholders for the lower left and upper right corners like this for the "low approach other" result.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$B Search Pattern $$+ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . o o o . . . . . . . . O . . . . | $$| . . o o o . . . . , . . . . . , X . . | $$| . . o o . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . o . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . x . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . x x . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . | $$| . . x x x . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$| . . . x x x . . . . . . . . . X . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$+ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - +[/go]

I added the kosumi in the upper right corner to produce the misnamed "Shusaku B7" on the graph. It is misnamed because I took all games where the position appeared within the first nine moves. So, for example, the Ear-reddening Game is counted here as a b7 game even though the players took time out to make shimari in the upper and lower left corners.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$B Inoue Genan Inseki - Yasuda Shusaku 1846-09-11 $$ --------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , 1 . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . . | $$ | . . 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 . . | $$ | . . 5 , 7 . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Despite such liberties, the interesting fact shown in the graph above is that the Shusaku fuseki only once accounted for more than 15% of the even games in GoGoD despite its prominence in Go theory. That was in the period 1880-1899.

Meanwhile, we know from the graph I posted earlier on shimari-based fuseki that some of those were much more prominent. If we scale that earlier image to match the one above...

(Larger Image)
But this image was again tracking "named" systems, i.e. I was doing exactly what I disliked in others! :scratch:

Going back to first principles (and also doing a better job with emeraldemon's earlier request!)...

(Larger Image)
Here we see a graph of all games where Black plays a shimari in an otherwise empty 10X10 quadrant. In this version the results are grouped by the type of shimari: small knight, high, and large knight. We can see that for more than 200 years, starting from the beginning of the 18th century, Black used a shimari of one sort or another in about two thirds of all even games. Only in the 1930's did the fraction decline. The percentage declined to the mid-20's around 1977 and again in the 1990's before rising somewhat these days.

Also note the original dominance of the small knight shimari in the 18th century before the high shimari took over in the early 19th century. The high move did not give up that prominence until after WWII.

(Larger Image)
This second version of the same data groups the results by the move number on which a shimari is created. For example, the dark bands of blue, green, and red at the bottom of the graph show the games in which Black made an immediate shimari (small, high, or large respectively) on move 3 of the game. The next set of slightly lighter colors show the games where the shimari was made on move 5 and so on. The top bands show the games where Black made a shimari on move 9 or later. I think it is interesting to note the long-lasting importance of the immediate shimari on move 3 - the "nameless" fuseki perhaps? Despite the "story" that the New Fuseki was a reaction to the Shusaku orthodoxy, we can see that actually the immediate shimari was used in over 40% of all even games in the 1920's, whereas the Shusaku fuseki in the top graph had already fallen to 5% by that time. Another point of interest to me is that the high shimari replaced the small knight in the 19th century across all variations we see: shimari on b3, b5, etc. However, when the small knight play reemerged in the 20th century, it was clearly linked to the shimari played on b5. At that time, it was specifically what I dubbed the "standard" fuseki in my earlier graph...

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$B "Standard" fuseki $$ --------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , 1 . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

With b3 on the 3-4 point and a myriad of choices of White plays on the left side.

Feel free to interpret any/all of the above in any way that you like. Enjoy! :study:

hyperpape · Post by **hyperpape** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 6:02 am

One of John Fairbairn's posts on sensei's mentions that the immediate enclosure was an important part of the developments in fuseki just prior to the Shin Fuseki period. (But I know you probably know that, Dave).

ez4u · Post by **ez4u** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 6:20 am

hyperpape wrote:One of John Fairbairn's posts on sensei's mentions that the immediate enclosure was an important part of the developments in fuseki just prior to the Shin Fuseki period. (But I know you probably know that, Dave).

Well, as you can see on the linked page, I also 'drank the kool-aid' as it were and own some of the books that JF was writing about. However, as the games in GoGoD (summarized in the graphs above) clearly show, the immediate enclosure was an important part of developments in fuseki circa 1750, but it is a stretch to claim they were developed as part of the run up to the New Fuseki. It would be much closer to actual practice to say they were the orthodoxy already - much more so than Shusaku.

hyperpape · Post by **hyperpape** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 7:07 am

I did not mean to suggest they were invented just prior to that period. But there was an upsurge in play using that initial enclosure in the early 20th century. It would be interesting to see how much of that was a result of reacting to more popular moves by white, and how much was an increase in the popularity of move independently of changes in white's play.

Btw: what's your workflow for this stuff? That is, how are you extracting and processing the data?

emeraldemon · Post by **emeraldemon** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 8:36 am

Thanks for answering my request

One thing that I noticed: it looks like the large shimari had a jump in popularity from about 2000-2005, and even today seems to be more popular than it was any time except maybe in the 1900-1950 range. The small enclosure is still quite a bit more popular, but I wonder if there's some recent theory or developments that make that move more common these days. It also looks to be more popular than the high shimari, which has never happened before it looks like.

ez4u · Post by **ez4u** » Wed Jul 25, 2012 9:04 am

hyperpape wrote:I did not mean to suggest they were invented just prior to that period. But there was an upsurge in play using that initial enclosure in the early 20th century. It would be interesting to see how much of that was a result of reacting to more popular moves by white, and how much was an increase in the popularity of move independently of changes in white's play.

Btw: what's your workflow for this stuff? That is, how are you extracting and processing the data?

The question above stumped me for a long time, not in terms of the answer but rather that I could not find a really nice way to show it in a pleasing, yet correct, graph. So I just won't!

The answer is that the main driver of the spike in the use of the initial enclosure was a spike in the use of what I called the "opposing" 5-3 in one of my initial graphs. By that I mean this...

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$Bc Opposing 5-3 as a reply to initial 3-4 $$ --------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , 1 . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

During the 1920's this became the second most popular reply to an initial 3-4, behind only the traditional 3-4 at D17. With the advent of the New Fuseki, however, it was buried by a sudden concentration on the use of 4-4 in the various corners instead. The opposing 5-3 was not a new idea, having first appeared in the 17th century. Throughout its history the primary tool used to counter it has been one or another immediate shimari. The 20's were no exception to this, although like other variations the high shimari was more dominant than if we look across longer periods of time.

It is interesting that in volume 2 of "Igo Hyakunen", the book that JF wrote about in the SL pages referred to above, the 5-3 move is not mentioned. Kitani was the author of Volume 2, which deals with the New Fuseki. He used this 5-3 as White in five games found in GoGoD, four in 1927 and one in 1930. Although he won all five games, he had clearly abandoned it for other things by the time he had the New Fuseki ideas ready for prime time. So presumably it did not feature as an important element of Go theory in his mind, despite it's popularity at that time.

As to how I have done these:
(0. A necessary bit of background was to reorganize the game file directory structure so that the kombilo databases reflected the periods I wanted to graph - crucial in step 5)
1. Pick a theme
2. Decide how to break down the info
3. Run searches using Kombilo
4. Export the results (Database -> Export Search Results) and save the output as a text file. (I have about 150 queries saved at present)
5. Cut and paste the "Hits per database" listing into Excel
6. In Excel use "Data -> text to columns" to parse the data in order to extract the number of games per database (=periods)
7. Stick the raw numbers in a column, divide by the appropriate denominator (e.g. all even games by period)
8. Fiddle around making a nice-looking graph.
Simple right? This gets real tedious because I screw up this or that fairly often and change my mind about something very often. :rambo:

Worst of all is that Excel does not properly (IMHO) protect the colors and transparency settings in the graphs. Thus, if I have to adjust the colors, I often end up going through them one by one manually changing each of them back to what they were the last time I did it. Since some of the graphs show up to 15 queries, this can get extremely frustrating! :blackeye:

A very simple example, graphing a single query is below...

Larger Image

And as a apology for taking so long to reply, here is a graph showing the development over time of different pincers against a low approach to a 3-4 stone. I don't have a lot of deep thoughts on the results, but I think it is interesting to see the trends and anyway it looks real nice.

Larger image
Note that here the percentage figures are only useful for a general comparison of the popularity of the different pincers. Because Kombilo outputs the number of games in which a single type of pincer occurs, a game where two different pincers appear will be counted twice while a game with two instances of the same pincer will be counted only once.

ez4u · Post by **ez4u** » Wed Jul 25, 2012 9:29 am

emeraldemon wrote:Thanks for answering my request

One thing that I noticed: it looks like the large shimari had a jump in popularity from about 2000-2005, and even today seems to be more popular than it was any time except maybe in the 1900-1950 range. The small enclosure is still quite a bit more popular, but I wonder if there's some recent theory or developments that make that move more common these days. It also looks to be more popular than the high shimari, which has never happened before it looks like.

If we look at the original spike back around 2000, we can see that it first appeared mainly on Black's move 7. Browsing through GoGoD games with a shimari on move 7, I think it is fair to say that original renewed interest in the large shimari came about through the move and counter move shown below...

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$Bc Black large shimari vs White anti-mini-Chinese $$ --------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . , X . . | $$ | . . a . . 1 . 2 . . . . . 3 b . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

(The upper right and left may vary) This was part of the give and take surrounding the mini-Chinese fuseki. When White began using the pincer at :w2:

to counter Black's attempt to initiate the mini-Chinese, Black's earliest reaction was to enter the 3-3 point at "a". However, results were not so good and Black quickly shifted to making a shimari in the lower right. Although the small shimari at "b" has been most popular, the large shimari at :b3:

has been second. I speculate that this caused a renewed interest in the large shimari in other lines. This variation has all but disappeared recently as the pincer at :w2:

has lost popularity.

Life In 19x19

Flowing Fuseki

Flowing Fuseki

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