Life In 19x19

On this thread the idea of "move 2 lost the game" came up and was then dismissed. There is a chapter of Kajiwara's [sl=TheDirectionOfPlay]The Direction Of Play[/sl] with that title. Of course in most of our (amateur) games there are much bigger mistakes in the middlegame fighting than in the opening, but that's not to say a game cannot be lost in the opening. Translating that advantage from the opening though to the end of the game is difficult, but very satisfying when done. Here are 2 examples where I think I did that (with comments in the sgfs).

The first features the very same "losing" move of white 2 of a 3-4 facing a black 4-4 as in Kajiwara's book. This allowed me (black) to map out a large moyo which white then felt compelled to invade. By attacking the resulting weak groups I pressed my advantage and won. So whilst we can't say move 2 lost the game (afterall I am a few stones stronger than my opponent), I think we can say white's move 2 set white on a losing course, from which he never found a way to depart.



The second is against a player of about equal strength (I'm higher rated on OGS where this game was played, he is higher rating in the EGF). This one I feel I can say much more strongly that white's move 6, and the rotational mirroring strategy it implies, did indeed lose the game (my opponent agreed). This is because the mirroring is better for black due to the black stone in the upper right corner. It was revealing that neither player made a territory as big as the upper-right black one for the rest of the game.



P.S Not sure if this is the right forum

first game i disagree. it has no flow and appears to be a fencing move.

White 2 in the first game, facing Black's 4-4 stone has an interesting history in GoGoD. It first appears in game 1 of the Kitani - Go Seigen 10-game match sponsored by Jiji Shinpo when they were still 5-dans (March 1933). Kitani played it of course. He lost but that did not prevent him from trying it a few more times over the years. Clearly this fuseki was one of those indications of how stubborn he could be. He did not win with it until his eighth try in 1951. In all GoGoD has 13 of his games starting like this with Kitani scoring 3-10! It may have had something to do with who he chose to play it against however. He lost five times against Go Seigen and three times against Sakata, so there were not so many other people involved.

In all GoGoD has 160 games with this beginning. It seems to attract a few players who stick with it. The most recent was the Chinese pro Wang Yang. He tried it in 2003 and then again in 2006, scoring successive wins. Perhaps thinking that he was on to a good thing, he proceeded to lose ten games in a row before giving up on it in 2008.

However, others have done better. Sakata took it up in the early fifties (some time after Kitani scored his first win with it). It looks a little too much like coincidence that Kitani beat Miyashita Shuyo 7p with it in Sept. 1951 and then Sakata used it for the first time in June 1952 to beat the same Miyashita Shuyo. But just in case you have any doubts, Go Seigen used the same fuseki in August 1952 to beat... Miyashita Shuyo! I do not know if it was known as the "Anti-Miyashita" opening in 1950's era fuseki dictionaries. But back to Sakata, he proceeded to win seven in a row, including two against Takagawa and two against Go Seigen (in their 6-game match). Sakata dropped it after a while but returned to it thirty years later in the 1980's. In all he recorded 13 wins against only 5 losses.

Hashimoto Utaro is another well-know proponent during the '50's. He scored 9-7 against a mixed group of players. However, included in his wins was Sakata's sole loss in the 1953 Honinbo league. That tied Sakata with Kitani, who won the playoff to decide the challenger to Takagawa. You can say that this fuseki directly contributed to Takagawa's legendary 9-year run as Honinbo. So you see that regardless of Kajiwara-sensei's opinion, this White 2 hasn't lost every game!

By the way, looking at all 160 examples in GoGoD, no professional player as Black has ever chosen to answer White 2 with a play at the upper left 5-4 point (E16) played by Uberdude. As always YMMV!

Edit: To Bill's point below; Black won 58% of the 160 even games that began this way. In the 50's, however, White did slightly better than Black. I think that probably reflected who was using the opening in the 50's rather than the intrinsic quality of the plays.

Re-edit: Sorry, should have looked at Bill's point more carefully. The diagonal 4-4 formation shown is a 53% winner for Black in all even games in GoGoD (969 games). However, since 2002 (approximately the 6.5 point komi era) it is 53% plus for White. In handicap games (1223 games!) Black won 50% and White won 42%. Note that most of the handicap games in GoGoD are classical games between top players with a large percentage of unfinished/unknown results.

A few years ago, IIRC, according to database search this opening position had a very good track record for Black, no matter which order of moves produced it.

Magicwand wrote:first game i disagree. it has no flow and appears to be a fencing move.

What do you mean by "fencing move", one that fences off some territory? Is this a criticism in itself, or just that now is not the time? Would you prefer I continue attacking directly with the cap at L12? My thinking with o10 was it was a box-shaped extension from the wall above and prevented White from playing the shoulder hit at q10, a move I feared would effectively reduce the power of the wall above, though I suppose if I had capped White might be too busy with the weak group at the top to q10. But o10 meant that if White reduced at o12 it was closer to his weak group at the top so I get a very obvious and severe splitting attack (a splitting attack would be less good on a q10 group as they are further away). However, maybe white should have played at l12, if black reinforces the side that's slow, and if not White can play o12 later.

This large knight shape from a 3rd line stone to grow a moyo is a shape I have seen in pro games so I was experimenting with it. I remember reading a comment, I think from John Fairbairn on SL, about a Japanese Go term rarely used in the west to do with fencing off territory and preventing reduction. It reported a comment from a Korean 6d that he thought learning to play these sort of moves is what took him from 5 to 6 dan. The large knight seems to be a common shape for such moves. I wonder if the term is karai which Antii mentioned on his blog and Bill has contributed to the SL article. Shame JF isn't here anymore.

@ez4u: Thanks for the summary of the pro history of White 2. I did notice Wang Yang 5p played it a lot recently so asked Jeff Chang, who knows him, if he knew why but he didn't. I wonder if there is an element of mind games to it: by playing a move widely recognised as bad but still beating your opponent could somewhat humiliate them. A more subtle version of opening on the 2-2 point perhaps . If this is the case White 2 will often be played by stronger players so the statistics are biased as you say. Regarding my choice of the 5-4 point for move 3, that's the move Kajiwara recommends to punish White 2, strange no pros agree with him!

Uberdude wrote:... Regarding my choice of the 5-4 point for move 3, that's the move Kajiwara recommends to punish White 2, strange no pros agree with him!

I thought that was the case, but I wrote the post at work and did not have access to my dog-eared copy of Direction of Play. Poor Kajiwara-sensei, everyone enjoyed his forceful opinions but no one bothered to listen to his advice. I have the same problem every Saturday night when I am drinking with my friends. I don't understand it either!