Styles both players have to want to play

[SmoothOper]

It seems there are many fuseki and joseki that both players have to want to play. For example the diagonal corner fuseki and the complicated variations of the large avalanche joseki. I generally don't play these to simplify my studies. I am wondering if this might be why Takemiya didn't win quite as many titles with his Cosmic Style as one might have expected given his popularity.

[ez4u]

Yes, all joseki are cooperative efforts and at best Black and White can choose their first two plays regardless of what their opponents do. Although even here...

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As long as Black is content with a parallel fuseki, White can not stop Black after this . White can prevent any diagonal fuseki with here. Now White can play in a parallel empty corner next. But if Black tries to directly disrupt White's planning with an immediate approach at , White has to be pretty stubborn about it.

In fact, in GoGoD there are 700 games with this 1,2,3 and playing at "a" is the second most common choice by White (after the simple knights play at "b").

The comment on Takemiya has me scratching my head ( ). I think he is the best example of someone very popular for reasons other than his winning ratio. Having said that, a quick run through of the Nihon Kiin homepage gives the latest title sweepstakes as:

Code: Select all

Player            Titles
Cho Chikun          72
Sakata              64
Kobayashi Koichi    59
Otake               48
Kato                47
Cho U               37
Rin Kaiho           35
Yoda                35
Ishida Yoshio       24
*Takemiya*          24
Fujisawa Shuko      23
O Rissei            22
Yamashita           21
Hane Naoki          21

Only eight people in the NK's history have accumulated more titles, so he is no slouch in that regard either.

[SmoothOper]

The comment on Takemiya has me scratching my head ( ). I think he is the best example of someone very popular for reasons other than his winning ratio.

I am just hypothesizing, maybe The people liked his style so they tended to go along with it maybe just to see where it went.

[Boidhre]

I found this quote interesting from the John Fairbairn book on Honinbo Shuei:

"Weaker players tend to favour one style to compensate for weaknesses in another way of playing. Truly strong players favour a style mainly out of personal preference."

[Bill Spight]

The comment on Takemiya has me scratching my head ( ). I think he is the best example of someone very popular for reasons other than his winning ratio.

I am just hypothesizing, maybe The people liked his style so they tended to go along with it maybe just to see where it went.

I was in Japan when Takemiya, at age 15, burst upon the scene by defeating three 9 dans. IIRC, he was 5 dan. For a 5 dan to defeat a 9 dan was unheard of at the time. Also, he is a friendly, likeable guy. Of the pros that I have met, only Yamabe struck me as friendlier.