Hey there!

I've gotten to a point of my Go learning (KGS 5 kyu-ish) in which I think it's about time I start learning some Fuseki patterns. I've never really looked into them, and it's clear people around my level at my Go club are much more experienced in that field, being able to name them and knowing which Joseki go well against the best known ones.

As a natural conclusion of this, I'm trying to select a couple Fuseki patterns I like and studying the most common variations that stem from it, in order to have a coherent strategy for my first moves... So far I'm trying to learn how to do the Kobayashi (and fall back to Chinese if my opponent denies it with a pincer).

My problem is... Whenever I find articles about Fuseki, they always seem to be written from Black's perspective. It seems to me that the third move from black is what really makes it possible to get a specific strategy going, while white always seems to be reactive, having to answer black's pattern.

In other words, if I'm playing as white and black 3 is an approach move, I'm often left wondering what to do. If it's an enclosure, I can usually start one of the Fuseki I'm studying from the most pleasing angle... But not so if I have to answer black's approach.

So do all Fuseki work equally for black and white? Is there such thing as a Kobayashi Fuseki playing White or should I abandon all plans and just react if I'm playing second? Maybe I'm overthinking this, but the opening is a part of the game in which I direly need to improve.

Thanks!

Post your serious games here (or on KGS) for reviews.

Fuseki patterns are usually for black, since black has the initiative of the first move and is to some extent dictating the flow of the game. White usually plays in response to what black is doing.

In Takeo Kajiwara's "The Direction of Play", he says something similar. He essentially claims that in the opening it's black's job to make his stones work as efficiently as possible and, consequently, white's job to frustrate black's plans. It's just the nature of the game.

If you play white and manage to take the initiative, you're probably not following a known fuseki pattern anymore, and are most likely heading swiftly towards the middle game.

Here's a fuseki pattern I play sometimes as white, which gives white a relatively greater control of the early flow of the game:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . 1 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

Here, and can also be other moves.

The position for white on the left is called Mukai Komoku or "facing 3-4 points".

The advantage of this way of play is that it makes it impossible for black to play many of the large scale patterns that require an approach, such as Kobayashi or Mini-Chinese. Black is almost forced to play an approach in between the two white stones, which will usually lead to a smaller scale opening for both.

Here's a short exploration of the follow-up:

Being a move up, black is the one who can try fast moyo plays.

White is, of course also defining whatever fuseki is played by choosing about half the moves (with the two first corner stones especially effecting black's options, as Herman observes).

White can respond to eg. a black Chinese or Sanrensei by playing a similar strategy on the other side of the board. That is a strategy. I don't believe there is anything intrinsically wrong with playing the usual joseki against sanrensei, Chinese or Kobayashi though (as long as you are thinking about what you are doing and trying to win, rather than answering robotically (which is a mistake I have found myself making in the past)).

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I know what you mean. It almost seems like there are two different games. I prefer to play a strategy that doesn't really depend on being white or black, but the fuseki books seem to always having white playing nirensei.

You should always react, both as black and as white, in my opinion.

It may be slightly easier for black to plunk down a chinese or orthodox fuseki without paying attention to white's moves, but that doesn't make it correct.