I have just realized that the low Chinese opening is a fuseki for fighting. I was always interested in it because I thought it was a nice peaceful, more territory oriented strategy because essentially you are just laying out a nice big moyo. Yet, lo and behold I was watching a fuskei lecture by Nick Sibicky and he said that the low Chinese was for fighting. It makes perfect sense, if you are claiming that much territory your opponent is of course going to come in to prevent such a foundation from being built.

If you want to play a peaceful game you have to be willing to slowly build of up your territory, giving and taking here and there. Just thought I'd share this with everyone.

By the way does anyone know which fuseki would be appropriate for a more peaceful and balanced game? I like reviewing Yi Ch'ang-ho's games for that reason.

Why not try fuseki from a game that you reviewed for experience? I don't know if there is a 'peaceful fuseki'. Maybe orthodox is closest.

If you want a peaceful game, just play a suboptimal opening and then make no effort to catch up.

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— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Go isn't set in stone like this (get it?). For example, if you look at this commented game, you'll see Park Younghun play it against Lee Changho. Both are well-known as extremely territorial and very peaceful, and that is how the game developed.

Notice how Lee patiently plays to reduce Black's potential, then follows with a relatively safe shoulder hit, and how he slowly builds his own territory without going into difficult fights and complex variations.

Openings don't necessarily mean a game will go a certain way, though there certainly are trends as professionals compete for the win. Black could have fought off White's original kakari and drawn the game towards a fighting scenario, but ultimately it's up to the players. And of course the stones.

Si vis pacem, para bellum

There are many examples of pros with peaceful styles you can try to emulate, but this will always come with a caveat - Your peaceful style must be backed up with the fighting strength to convince your opponent that creating unnecessary complications will not be a fruitful endeavor. Further you must have the counting ability to ensure that your peaceful trades are actually slightly in your favor.

Sure you can find dozens of games where Yi seems to effortlessly march to victory, but it takes an enormous amount of work to make something very hard look easy.

The orthodox fuseki has always appealed to me, as a player who enjoys peaceful play. But of course you still often end up fighting.

At some point, I decided that I needed to fight more to improve, however.

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Occupy Babel!

If not peaceful fuseki, maybe calm fuseki.

"It's hard to beat an opponent who plays honte".

The idea here is how well you can use your Go abilities to lead the game in a direction that works better for you. The Chinese opening is known to lead to early fighting. The orthodox opening is known to be more mellow. In either case, Black has to follow up his play in a way that takes advantage of the stones already on the board.

If you choose a 'fighting fuseki', you have to be able to coerce your opponent into a fight. If you choose a 'peaceful fuseki', you have to be able to calmly take territory without letting your opponent gain a global advantage.

This is part of why the fuseki is so critical, and why one tends to pay more attention to getting their full value out of their oldest played stones. Consistency is a big part of efficiency, and we all know how important that is.