Below is a situation I encountered in my game. My opponent used the Sanrensei against me, and as some of you know that is my favorite opening to play as . I'm also more familiar with this opening than any other opening out there. Does that say a lot? Probably not.

My issue with this opening is when it comes to playing as . I've seen the standard procedures and joseki- I hate them all.

So, I played as a response to the Sanrensei. Is this good? Is this bad? I really don't know. If you look in the tab, you can see that it worked out quite well. I'm not so sure my opponent was familiar with using the opening though, so it's hard to say.

I feel like I had enough experience using this opening to play against it. Against a stronger player, that might not have been the case. Either way, what do y'all think?

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . , . . . . . 4 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 6 . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 3 . . . . . 5 . . . . . 1 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Game:

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Slava Ukraini!

I don't think your move is wrong, but in the past when I've played like this, stronger players have told me that it's more active to reach out all the way and approach the enemy 4-4 stone first, and then (if he extends) take D10 naturally in the course of the joseki.

That move is actually a really common/effective way to deal with Sanrensei, so good job!

Thanks. It seemed like an okay move.



Good point. I see what you mean. That does seem like a better idea. But generally when I play that, the opponent pincers.

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Slava Ukraini!

What's wrong with getting pincered? You can just take the corner and get sente to approach the other one.

Here's a pretty recent example of the sanrensei with pincer:

One more, 55 response:

Thanks emeraldemon! I'll definitely be sure to look over these. And speaking of which, do you happen to have any games handy of pros using the Chinese Opening? That's one I REALLY need to study.

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Slava Ukraini!

Thanks for posting that game! It actually has some examples of things I'm currently studying entirely unrelated to san-ren-sei, and the play by both sides is pretty clean (by which I mean I understand what's going on pretty well).

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1k KGS

It's much easier to find games with the Chinese opening than the sanrensei. The Chinese is still very popular among top pros, but I think the sanrensei's popularity has fallen off somewhat. Just pick any random pro game, there's a good chance it will be Chinese fuseki

Here are two with excellent and free commentary from An Younggil, the 8p at gogameguru:

I did a lesson about how to play against the San-ren-sei, maybe you find it useful. viewtopic.php?p=86510#p86510

I've noticed that almost every sanrensei game played by pros they pincer one approach and take the corner on the second. I guess this is for balance and not having all of ones eggs in one big moyo basket, but does anyone have any other thoughts on that? Uberdude's top game in the link suggests that pincering twice may be too easy to reduce.