Hallo! I have one question: I want to learn something about the “Chinese Opening”. Please, can you recommend me something?!
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https://www.twitch.tv/videos/516358643?t=00h00m50s Clossi played chinese during his 200 game run. You could check those videos out to see how it plays out at amateur level.
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Oh, thanks a lot!
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There are a bunch of books too, including one in english.
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About the videos posted by snakesss above, be warned that the first three were made before AlphaGo changed the Go world. Especially the Chinese fuseki has changed considerably since the arrival of AI, so those videos might not be completely accurate.
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May I ask you, wich opening with a concept thats easy to understand one could recommend nowadays? I completly understand, that things get concreter with the AI, cause I have some decades experience in chess 
But I´m new at the fascinating game of go, and look for a concept behind some Josekis, and the Chinese Opening seems to deliver this kind of concept. Thanks a lot in advance!
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Hello there! I’m glad you’re excited about the game of Go, but I would actually CAUTION you regarding using the Chinese Opening if you are a beginning player. Why you ask?
So - think of it this way - Black starts of with an advantage for going first. That advantage is formalized to 6.5 points by komi. If they’re being smart and following opening priorities, in the first 4 moves, Black and White will both approach the 4 available corners (and hopefully avoid a cross-cut game!)
Now Black needs to make their 5th move. They can either PRESS their advantage and approach one of White’s corners, or CASH IN their advantage and create a potential large extension with the Chinese Opening.
While this may seem like a good deal for Black, it actually ends up creating a fight earlier in the game than otherwise, because it invites White to invade that framework early - taking both players out of the usual Opening Priorities and focusing on local fights. This is my short version, I’ve written up a longer version at the end of this article (which you also might find useful):
BOTTOM LINE: as a beginning player, you may get better results in the long run by using the Sente in Move 5 to approach one of White’s corners, and try to create an extension back to one of your other corners rather than inviting a fight early in the game. To put it another way, if you are a 25-30 kyu player, trying the Chinese Opening against other 25-30 kyu players might give you good results (because they don’t know how to invade yet), but if you try it against a 15-20 kyu player, they’ll know how to respond, and you may find yourself in trouble very quickly. Good luck!
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Disclaimer: I’m not a strong chess player at all.
Perhaps another thing that is important to realise, is that (in my opinion) joseki fit the role of chess openings better than fuseki do. I see chess as a fight where both players with every move change the situation for the majority of the pieces on the board, thus a balanced opening is crucial to have any chance later in the game.
The same holds for corner joseki: for any corner involving two players, it is crucial that the outcome is balanced (e.g. sharing the corner, or one player getting territory / quick cash, while the other gets influence to use later). The difference with chess is that joseki do not directly influence the status of other corners, they only do so indirectly by influencing the status of the whole board. So, go is more like a collection of interconnected fights, while chess is more like a single corner in Go (or more like Go on a 9x9 board). The big implied difference is that a failed joseki in Go does not mean you lose the game since your overall position may be good, while a failed opening in chess often does.
Fuseki on the other hand is all about the other aspect of go, that is, not searching for a balanced settlement of a fight, but for a strong position in the long run. Fuseki is all about setting up the board for certain joseki, such that the balanced result of the fights in the corners gives you a strategic advantage in the midgame. It is therefore a lot harder to actually evaluate if a fuseki is good or bad, since it depends a lot more on play style than on fair result. A good fighter may want to threaten to conquer the whole board because they can fight off invasions, while a good endgamer may instead opt for making solid territory and slowly beating the opponent with endurance and usage of sente.
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Thank you, what an insightful answer. But as a longtime chess player with 2300 Elo I would ask you please to compare chess at least with an 11 x 11 board, ok
I just try to find a harmony in the chaos of information, and so I thank you again for the answer!
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Here is a good way to think about it - in order to become good at Go, you will need to develop a broad range of different skills and learn to see different types of strategic information across the scope of the game. Some of these task are much more complex and advanced than others.
So - for instance - understanding the basics of sente and gote, or understanding what it means to settle your stones are things that all beginners have to learn at some time in order to progress.
Understanding how to grab an advantage in the transition from Opening to Midgame by using clever direction of play, dealing with complex contact fights in tight quarters, and maximizing your use of sente moves in endgame are much more complex challenges, because they require the understanding of so many other underlying pre-requisites.
As such, as a beginning player, I believe one can learn a lot more from using elements which REDUCE the complexity of a given game and help you feel in control, rather than elements that INCREASE complexity and leave you feeling overwhelmed and confused.
For a concrete example - responding to your opponent’s corner approach with a calm territorial move that allows you to create a potential base and play from thickness might give you better results than trying a pincer move that starts a life-or-death battle at move 14, and ends up giving one side or the other a large direction-of-play advantage before the Opening is even over.
So yes, as a general guideline I would encourage you to take this complex game one step at a time, and come to terms with the less complex aspects before you venture into games where more complex aspects come into play.
Good luck!
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O I think same, I would compare a joseki with a chess opening. Not a 11 11
There are encyclopedies Of josekis like for chess opening. In both intuition has a minor role.
The intuition start with making the josekis work together in what we call the fuseki.
To come back to the topic, I used to advise about playing a specific fuseki more for intermediate level (let say 6k-2k) because it helps to build a full game by simplifying and having a better grasp on the opening.
Earlier there are a lot more to discover, not to say you can’t try the chinese Opening Of course!
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in my personal opinion learning about the chinese opening isn’t that bad of a thing
because by learning this opening, you’re actually how to make a moyo and how to attack opponent’s group/stones when opponent invades your moyo
but if you only just imitate the first 5 moves and ignore learning the strategy as a whole then there’s very little point in learning it
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Before studying any opening you need a bit more other things like cuting/connecting for exemple.
Or what is moyo and what is territory. What is a lack Of liberty. What is a pincer, an extension… How to make 2 eyes and So on.
Instead Of searching some guidelines in a specific pattern for starting a game I would advise more to try your own opening if Any, by Trying the different ways to Put your first stone in a corner, So to feel How a 33 is territorial, a 35 with is Weird flexibility, a 44 influencial …
You can even try a 55 or a 22 or … as long as you try something. Some books like “opening made easy” can help you in that way.
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