Since the first day of my journey in Go, I've always been interested/fascinated in the theories that surround the opening part of this game. With this topic, I would like to know more about the first few points (excluding the 4-4 star point), such as why some people choose to play 5-4, 3-4, I've even seen some games with the 3-3 point. Along with knowing what benefit these points give you, I would also like to know some strategies surrounding that first decision and maybe even some counter-strategies to deal with each play.

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Otake Hideo's "Opening Theory Made Easy" can explain the basic corner moves to you.

When to choose which move is based on your opening strategy, sometimes on the moves played by your opponent and sometimes based on fashion or imitation. There is generally no right or wrong as long as you keep the moves on the third and fourth line and you play consistent to the corner move's direction (see "Opening Theory Made Easy") or to the whole-board-situation.

There are no real counter-strategies to deal with the first four corner moves. There are strategies to certain openings like the Chinese variations, the Kobayashi or San-Ren-Sei and they fill whole books.

Opening strategies will do you no good if you can't follow up with a decent middlegame. I can play an even opening with a 3-dan and resign twenty moves later.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

The place to start reading is Sensei's Library:

http://senseis.xmp.net/?FusekiPages pages about the opening
http://senseis.xmp.net/?Joseki pages about specific corner moves

Both very helpful resources. I've heard some good and bad about "Opening Theory Made Easy" but it's still worth a shot. Can't wait to start reading the articles as well. Thanks guys!

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I would recommend Yilun Yangs 'Fundamental principles of go', it has (among other things) a fairly thorough explanation of the strengths/weaknesses of the various opening moves, as well as other opening theory stuff; how to choose and approach move, pincer, joseki etc.

That being said, I think 'Opening theory made easy' is also a great book, one that I haven't looked at in quite a while so I can't directly compare without having the books here in front of me.

My overall recommendation would be to get both..

In a nutshell I think ;

3-4 aims to pincer, though against a high approach you can easily take territory.

5-4 takes a side, esp influence

5-3 takes a side more territorially, good pincer options

3-3 takes territory

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Revisiting Go - Study Journal
My Programming Blog - About the evolution of my go bot.

Opening Theory Made Easy is the way to go. Some people also like "In the Beginning", and there are of course books that provide opening problems which I like.

I also wrote up a post to explain very, very basic ideas about the opening, once upon a time. It may be that you are too advanced for these:

viewtopic.php?p=101488#p101488

I've got both "In the Beginning" and "Opening Theory made Easy", and I think they are both worthwhile.

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Poka King of the south east.

Each point has its own character. However, the differences are subtle. There are more important things to learn at the start of studying the opening, IMO.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I second this. Although both deal with the topic "opening", their overlap is surprisingly small. "In the Beginning" was my first book, and it helped me not to feel lost in the beginning. I have heard other people say the same about "OTME". Unfortunately I had the chance to read it when I was already SDK - I wish I had already read it when I was 20-30k - and judging it from the perspective of a mid-SDK it seems a valuable book as well.

Are there any complete strategies for the 5-4 or 3-5? For the 3-4, 4-4, and 3-3, there are books dedicated to the opening strategy. I gather most of the 3-5, 5-4 strategy is geared towards large scale joseki, but it seems there should be more to it, than an addendum on odd openings.

The latest version of GoGoD contains over 28,000 even games from the period since 2002 (roughly the 6.5 komi era). These yield us some 114,000 empty corners. We find more than 59,000 first plays on 4-4 and more than 52,000 on 3-4. Then we find about 1,000 on 5-3, about 650 on 3-3, and about 400 on 5-4 (from there we drop down to about 100 for first play on tengen). So even if we find some complete strategy explained for the latter three points (and I've not seen one), we should be aware that they have little general acceptance in actual contemporary professional practice. As always, however, that should not necessarily be an obstacle for us feckless amateurs.

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Another part of the opening is 3rd and 4th line.

Something about playing on the third line means you've completed playing at that side in the opening

and 4th line meaning you plan on getting another move in.

Something like that. If someone knows more about this it would be wonderful if they could post more about it. :]

This is one of those topics that always seems more complicated the more I know and learn about it.

As I understand it, one plays on the 3rd line for stability. Stones on the third line are difficult to undermine, and are more oriented towards stabilizing a group on the side or making territory there. Usually, if you have a stable stone on the third line in the opening, that side is relatively small for the opponent compared to a side where you don't.

Stones on the 4th line are too far from the edge to effectively prevent the opponent from playing beneath them. You can't count on the area underneath being territory, and you may not be able to count that space as eyespace either. On the other hand, they're much better positioned for building walls and fighting later on. They are also better at building moyos because of that height, which may seem like a territorial strategy but is actually more of a fighting strategy, daring the opponent to prevent you from just enclosing enough territory to win and solidifying it.

Generally, if you have a group in a relatively open area, you want it to have a mix of stones on the 3rd and 4th lines for a balance, ideally with the 3rd line stones on the outside. In more cramped situations, however, this idea can get thrown out the window depending on the situation. You may need to stay on the 3rd line in order to create eyespace and live, since you are more interested in gouging out an area than making a lot of points there. You may also not have enough space to live, so you play more on the 4th line to reduce, or to attack something on the opposite side of the board.

That said, I am sure there is much more to say about the subject, and I won't guarantee that all my thinking is completely (or even substantially) correct.

We had a thread on exactly this topic not so long ago. Voila: viewtopic.php?p=129790#p129790

Honinbo Dosaku made good use of the 5-3. As White in this game he played the 5-3 in all four corners, to form his trademark Swastika 5-3. Enjoy!



Note how he made Black over-concentrated on the top side, something his contemporaries did not understand.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I tend to think that the latter point is more relevant. Dosaku made good use of opponents who did not understand the opening as well as he did.

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

I promise that Chitetsu understood the 3-5 better than AKaios's (OP) opponents will. It may not be trendy, but it is surely a full value opening move.

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- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this. Personally I think an observed 50-60 times difference in the choice of 4-4 and 3-4 over 5-3 requires a little more than 'not trendy' to explain it. Actually everything points to it not being a full value opening move, IMHO.

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

That seems to accord with the usual explanation that White often used 5-3 as a way of unbalancing the game in the days of no komi in particular. (And of course Black can do the same if that suits his style.) The 5-3 is like an octopus, quietly sliding away along the sea-bed until attacked, whereupon it puts up a tangled web of tentacles. Its reputation for ladders might also be likened to a squirt of blinding ink. But its lack of pincering power makes it less forcing and less easy to integrate with other stones. Modern players prefer to be lobsters.