I would say that it favors white, because the thing i said on post 11 ^^
Note that “black to build big, white to shatter the board” is more like very abstract-level theory and not some strict rule-of-thumb. Maybe that can be used as some guideline for early opening when considering what direction to play at, but for game between two amateurs it probably won’t matter at all xD
That being said, i myself would still rather take white on cross-opening. Just because it makes it little bit harder for black to build any gigantic framework.
I could make this argument about literally any opening:
There is almost zero chance that [ insert any opening ] does not favour one of the players. Yet both players decided to go for this opening, despite having other options.
There are very many different scenarios available. In every one of them, White decides after with the second move whether to allow the cross opening, and Black decides with the third move whether to choose it. And in every scenario, for the cross opening to occur, White and Black both think that with the current board opening, that will favor them. (Assuming people are making moves based on what they think will win the game, of course.)
As I said in the OP, I’m just looking at the four corner openings.
I agree with you, generally. I think every player has their groove, though, and the things that they are good at or bad at in attacking and defending. Some are scrappy and do well with fights, others are good at cementing large territories. There are a million factors there. But on average, yes - White seems better positioned with cross openings.
Yeah, I get that. My assumption in the OP is that both players are choosing every move precisely the path they think is better for them. It all changes if they are choosing based on politeness, or adventurousness, indifferences, or whatever else.
What I have read is that the diagonal fuseki tends to emphasize fighting, while the parallel tends to be more peaceful. Therefore, people who are good at fighting might favor the diagonal fuseki.
That is very true, and I considered that. Each play play their better game that way, BUT one of them will have a greater advantage than the other, and for the disadvantaged player - the other choice would have been better.
This is bearing in mind that one player may have a huge advantage over the other no matter what. But I’m looking at which path results in an increased chance of winning, even if that chance is low.
Nice generalization, let me take it one step further:
There is almost zero chance that a given sequence of move does not favour one of the players. Yet both players decided to go for a certain sequence of moves, despite having other options.
But seeing it like that somehow takes out the magic of “The Corner Dance”.
I personally feel, they are mostly just the product of cultures (even to this day, if players cited AI think one fuseki is better than others, it is still an AI-supremacy culture, and pros usually deviate into unfamiliar branches very quickly, and change their strategies depends on who their opponents are).
I had no idea that fixed stone placements were ever a thing! Wow. And very interesting that they would start with cross corners and not adjacent. More interesting still that they thought it reduced the advantage for White. Thanks for the link.
This is true for sure. Every single decision, each player is hoping that their move advantages them more than it advantages their opponent. And many times they are wrong about that. But very few single stone decisions change the character of the game as much as this one. And this is one of the few that requires agreement. You see it other places - where a player offers a ko, clearly thinking that a ko benefits them, and the other player may decide to take it, believing that it benefits them instead.
True, we have gone too far with our generalizations and lost that part.
So there are three options A, B and C of which two are miai (i.e. known to be equal, let’s say those are B and C). Player 1 plays next and gets to play two of them, player 2 can just play one. Player 1 deliberately chooses not to take away option A from player 2, plays B or C and says “I’m happy if you take A”. Player 2 plays option A and says “I’ll happily take A”. Now assuming that A was either better or worse than B and C, one player should be sad, but both are happy.
Now of course things change, if black and white don’t start with moves on a diagonal (like 4-4), but play moves close to it like 3-4.
I was also taught that white has an advantage with cross (4-4) openings in games with komi. AI disagree, but you don’t seem to care about AI opening judgement.
White can invite a cross opening, but black gets to decide. If black was taught (perhaps incorrectly) that cross openings favour white, it is likely that black will choose a parallel opening.
I fail to see the mystery here.
All this is about value of the komi.
If no komi or low komi, black will avoid fights. So he will favor diagonal. With high komi,reverse.
This is very theoritish of course…
Parallel fuseki is supposed to give more opportunity to build big moyos, and fights.
That could have changed with AI, I dunno (AI being less interested in moyos)
