Mark5000's Guide to the Opening (v2)

Sure. In my view, here’s what the key innovations are, and what’s changed from v1:

  • The axiom corners-sides-center is now just corners. Corners are more valuable than once thought, and splitting moves on the side have vanished. This means that opening play centers around the corners, after which strength and weakness of groups determines play more so than location on the board.

  • Named openings are dead. We all know there are a huge number of perfectly valid moves in the opening. But there was an effort, treated more religiously by westerners, to label certain openings similar to how chess openings are labeled, such as orthodox, Chinese, Kobayashi, etc. We now know these named openings are not special, and the AI-suggested “best” paths avoid all of them entirely. I preserved some of the lingo in the lesson, but mostly it’s back to the drawing board.

  • The 3-3 invasion reigns supreme. A consequence of increased value of corners is that the 3-3 point invasion of a 4-4 point is now a first-order move, just behind taking a corner in terms of priority. This means it can be played as early as move 3. The joseki have also changed, including the beginner-friendly bend-and-extend joseki, which now won’t give the opponent a hanging connection.

  • Answering a 4-4 point approach is just big not urgent. There’s new ways to handle the double approach of a 4-4 stone, namely by attaching on top of either stone. Since this gives a better result than once thought, approaching a 4-4 point can be gote, which is another reason why the 3-3 invasion has increased in popularity.

  • Enclosure popularity is reversed. Pro and amateur players used to choose the small knight enclosure of a 3-4 point more than any other enclosure. To everyone’s surprise, the two-point high enclosure is the preferred enclosure of all bots from AlphaGo to Fine Art to LeelaZero, and the small knight enclosure is the least favored one, being slightly overconcentrated and vulnerable to shoulder hits and attachments.

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