Looks like an interesting alternative to the handicap game. Good for players of similar strength.

This one would lead to a more fighting-oriented game, I think. Might be better for beginners to start on this setup before playing on the above one.

I think that, for beginners at least, prefixed opening patterns are helpful to compensate for the lack of opening knowledge. Also, by studying and playing with different forms of prefixed openings, the player can begin to develop a feel for how to play in X opening. Once the player has developed confidence in doing so, some deviation from standard opening pattern can be encouraged.

IMO, beginners should not concentrate too much on openings. Rather, they should emphasize middle game and endgame tactics. Once these have been developed to a high degree, then further opening study can be encouraged. Anyone who has played young children studying Go on a professional basis will find that, while they tend to make strategic errors, their tactical skills tend to be highly developed, hence their penchant for fighting games.

Why do people have no faith in the opening?

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

Visualize whirled peas.

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I'm not sure it's a lack of faith in the opening so much as being able to play a relatively good opening and then being torn to shreds by a better fighter in the middlegame because they don't know how to handle it.

I guess that's a more impressive experience than, I won every fight. How did I lose?

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Well, if you won every fight and still lost, its not a fuse issue. You have bigger problems. So its slightly OT here.

Bottom line - fuseki, unless totally botched, can give you slight advantage or disadvantage, true. But a slightly inferior fuseki does not lose games, not as a rule, just like a slightly better fuse does not automatically win games. At least - not usually. Plenty of pro games can be found in which one side got better out of fuseki and yet still lost the game.

A slightly better fighting skills win games more often, imho. But your mileage might vary.

And it really has nothing to do with having or lacking faith in opening. Opening certainly has its place, and it is important. But it is not all there is to Go, other skills are every bit as important. Often more so, depending on the game, on the opponent, on the amount of beer you drunk, and sometimes even on the time of the day.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

We are getting way off topic, but how about this for a test of the relative importance of fuseki skill: even game, professional versus amateur, each plays to the best of his ability, but switch colors after N moves. How large would N have to be for the superior opening to win?

That sounds sensible. The pro would have strong tactical skills to make the most of an opening pattern. The amateur dan would have slightly weaker skills. Now, at move N, would the amateur dan be able to sustain the lead established by the pro? If the amateur can determine the minimum value of N and play the required moves, then it is possible.

Fuseki is of high importance and might be decisive between players of equal tactical skill. IN the regular game, there are various opening patterns and the player should acquaint herself with as many of the most common ones as possible.

Fuseki patterns and joseki patterns change with the times. Even in Shusai Honinbo's time 4-4 was not a commonly played point in the opening. After the Shin Fuseki era, however, 4-4 became common and nowadays there are few pro games in which there isn't a 4-4 opening.

The tactics used to make the most of the advantages offered by each opening rarely change. Which is why most pros tell us to concentrate on life & death and tesuji. Once these are laid down as foundations for skill, the other categories are doable.

My assertion is that if, for the first year or so, the novice plays under Chinese classical rules she will develop strong reading ability for middle game and endgame, despite the prefixed opening. Since the seated stones are on 4-4 points, this method can serve as partial preparation for playing in current styles. Once the novice makes the switch to regular rules, she will have enough reading strength to make for a smooth transition. Of course there will be new openings to study and master, but the tactical skills will already be highly developed.

So, in an attempt to get back on topic, I say that we investigate the possibility of playing under Chinese classical rules, at least on a part-time basis and probably even on a full-time basis as a way to train beginners, at least those who might find the empty-board game to be intimidating.

Interesting question.

To forestall any questions about playing against themselves, we might have pro-am teams where one pro plays the first part of the game and the pro on the other side plays the last part of the game.

Now, I also do not think that it is important for beginners to study fuseki, which is one reason why I like to start them on small boards. What I object to is the idea that they have to become really good tactically before they learn to play the whole board. It is good to study whole board play, even as a DDK. Now, since even 5 kyu players can blow the game near the end because of damezumari, I think that the amateurs should be dan players.

Given that, I think that crossover point to make a roughly even game comes at least after move 75. That is well into the middle game, but the opening is not worth both the middle game and the endgame. If the crossover came at move 50 I would think that the pro first side would lose. I also think that the crossover point should come before move 120. If we actually experimented with this, we might initially try a crossover at move 100.

Edit: BTW, this might be an interesting way to have a teaching game. The players play without handicap and switch sides after 2N moves.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I don't believe the diagonal opening is different enough. After 4 moves, almost any kind of game can still develop. In fact, one could argue that the 4-4 josekis are on average tactically simpler.

It might make for an interesting form of teaching game. At the moment I don't see even a Western pro beating a candidate (student studying for professional qualification) in a tournament; each side is product of different training régimes. Cristian Pop once mentioned this in an article wherein, among other things, he talked about the presence of insei at the World Amateur Go Championships. This is a topic for another thread, though.

I concur on this one. Learning how to play whole board is something that takes time, so for beginners some time on 9x9 and 13x13 is good. I find that these sizes help me to refine my tactical abilities. Those players at DDK level can begin studying whole-board problems, even if they will not be able to solve them quickly at first. Plenty of practice with whole-board problems will, in the long run, help the beginner reduce strategic errors.

Looks like I inserted some extraneous info here I do not notice the commercialism of pro baduk whenever I play. I was referring to pro baduk per se. In countries where there are active pro leagues, the lure of prize money and prestige is one reason why many youngsters apply to baduk dojangs in (South) Korea and China. Of course only a few make it every year, but the presence and influence of pro players in China, Korea, and Japan is stronger than in Western countries. This is made possible by the patronage of private corporations and, at least in China, government subsidies.

Since no one plays the classical Chinese game these days, I am led to believe that it is not too strongly affected by commercialism. This would be good for those wanting to learn Go without having to worry about the latest openings and josekis or anything else pros and strong amateurs might be doing.

Not very similar to modern 4-4 josekis, though. Although common in QIng Dynasty games, the Mighty Cap move at 5-6 in response to kakari at 3-6 is not very common nowadays, at least in professional play. Playing keima at 6-3 is more common.

I wonder what kind of game would develop if we stuck to playing as we usually do on an empty board, but with diagonal opening and/or under classical Chinese rules. I don't think we'd be using the exact same techniques and patterns that Huang Longshi, Fan Xiping, and Cheng Lanru used. Or we could, but with an urge to innovate since Qing Dynasty patterns would feel rather odd to the modern player.

I forgot to add that, as many of us already know, the regular game has more fluidity and flexibility than classical Chinese and other older forms of the game.

The classical Chinese form appears to me to be a bit simpler than the regular form, which would make me think that an amateur can gain some experience with it before transitioning to the empty board game. I personally do not see anything wrong with this; Go Seigen and Chen Zude had experience playing classical style before going over to the regular game.

The again, at this point I'm tempted to say, why not just stick with prefixed handi games and forget about classical Chinese Go altogether?

The idea of finding the crossover point seems to be quite interesting, but if it is actually at move 100, say, I don't know how much that will tell you about the opening. My impression is that by move 100, most games are in the mid to late middle-game if not the beginning of the endgame. Arguably, much of the crossover point could point to strong middle-game skills instead. It seems like a difficult question to answer too early, though, because a strong endgame could easily swing the score 30-40 points or more against a shodan amateur. Just because this exercise doesn't speak solely to the opening doesn't mean it wouldn't be interesting, however. As the rank difference increases, I think you might get a much higher move number before the losing player can switch sides and successfully win, and I wonder whether it would be consistent as the stronger player got weaker as well.

I think it may also be interesting if you took a set of pro vs amateur games, and stopped them at, say, 30 or 40 or 50 moves.
The game is then given to the same or a different pro to take the amateur's side as if it were a handicap game, and you ask them what they thought the handicap was, what the result would be. That is to say, if they were to take the side that's behind against an amateur, what sort of normal handicap game they think would be equivalent to the challenge ahead of them. If you have different amateurs of the same nominal strength who get different results, then you'd at least be able to say that, for example, 3-dan A has an opening that's 1 stone stronger than 3-dan B, but when they play he loses the advantage later.

I believe this switching practice can reveal some interesting info regarding each player's ability. We can see who has strong opening, strong middle game, strong endgame, etc.

Suppose the pro and the ama switch sides every 25 moves. Then, every 50. Then, every 75. We can glean some nice findings regarding the skill of each side.

Some players might not know much joseki or prefer not to play out joseki, so they would rather start fights early in the opening to simplify things a bit. Not too sweet for the player that likes flexibility during the game. This is one reason why the taisha and avalanche are not much played these days among pros, but attach-and-extend and 3-3 point josekis are.