Fuseki is hard
Quiz time. Who recently declared something very similar to:
“Fuseki theory is developing very quickly and it’s getting harder and harder to follow it.”
a. Go Seigen
b. TheCaptain
c. Cho Chikun
d. Yoda Norimoto
c. Tartrate
d. Lee Sedol
e. Rui Naiwei
?
(Update)
Answer: d. Lee Sedol declared that in a recent interview.
I think this is amazing: Lee Sedol is the top player in recent international tournaments - so if fuseki is hard for him, what should the rest of us do…
I used to think at some point that fuseki doesn’t really matter for us amateurs, since most games are lost in the middle game fights. That is very wrong: fuseki is the foundation of the whole game, so it should be treated very seriously. If one’s foundation is not solid, the rest of the game will suffer too.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:32 am
I believe it was Lee Sedol. If I recall correctly it was in an interview on Goama.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:42 am
D.Lee Sedol
March 12th, 2008 at 2:47 am
Easy… Lee ofcourse
March 12th, 2008 at 3:53 am
I thought Yoda, then peeped.
March 12th, 2008 at 4:29 am
I’m pretty sure it was Lee Sedol who said that in an interview with Alexandre Dinerchtein.
March 12th, 2008 at 6:19 am
Lee Sedol
March 12th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
It’s clear that most of us read this interview of Lee Sedol.
March 12th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Sorry, bad quiz timing: too close to the GoAma interview..
March 13th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
One of my teachers (a 7-dan pro) focuses mainly on the fuseki in his reviews. It’s pretty hard to get much into the middle game review with him, although are some 5-6d players who occasionally can. I think his feeling is that once you start playing improper moves int he opening and fall behind, there’s not much point in discussing which overplays can help you catch up. There’s an enormous amount about proper shape, direction and thinking that shows up very early in the game.
Another way of thinking about it is: the middle game and endgame you can improve on your own by doing known, widely available exercises to improve your reading and counting. The experience of a pro is most valuable in the most poorly understood part of the game—the opening, so if you have access to a pro, it’s good to use his/her time for getting advice on that.
March 13th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Hi Snorri - I find the focus of your teacher almost only on fuseki interesting and unusual.
When I was insei in Japan the fuseki comments were quite rare (not more than “this is the usual move”), the focus was definitely on the middle game.
It may have had to do also with the fact that I was always playing just “boring” fusekis on purpose, to save the thinking time for the fights.
I think that your statement about one being able to improve the middle game by reading exercises is an oversimplification.
Getting a feeling for the direction of play with fighting groups in early middle game cannot be done by reading; reading only helps in close fights.
March 15th, 2008 at 2:27 am
Fuseki vs. Middlegame is an interesting question.
Back in the 90s I had some lessons with the Shutai Zhang who been through 4 years of pro training in China but didn’t turn pro.
He talked a bit about his experiences, and I definitely picked up that in the chinese training in the early 80s, the middle game was the main focus. Oversimplifying a great deal, the Chinese players waited for the stones to come together before the game really started with the middle-game fighting.
In the 80s Japan-Chin matches in Go World, you see games where players such as Jiang Jujo (against Awaji) and Nie (against Cho Chkun) make moves that were regarded as clear fuseki mistakes (wrong choice of joseki).
Maybe over the intervening years the emphasis has changed in China to the fuseki.
March 24th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Stuart, that makes a lot of sense: among players of equal strength, fuseki will make the difference.
But In early 80s the Korean and Chinese players were lacking middle-game strength compared to the Japanese pros, so the focus was on the middle-game.
So I still think that, as amateurs, the middle-game is the area which has by far the biggest payoff in terms of effort to learn vs. results, but one shouldn’t neglect fuseki.