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© 2011 John Fairbairn

Old Fuseki vs. New Fuseki

The Revolution in Opening Theory

by John Fairbairn

Buy the full book at gobooks.com

This book examines the famous game in which Go played his first three moves on the 3–3 point, the diagonally opposite 4–4 point, and the center point (tengen). In addition to the very complete analysis of the game, the book contains information about the background of the players and the game, a discussion of the development of the theory of New Fuseki, and a number of examples of it from actual games at the time. Fairbairn also provides by far the most thorough discussion in English of the controversy over whether Shusai’s decisive move in the middle game was discovered by one of his pupils during an adjournment.

Some parts of the print version of this book are not included in this SmartGo book, namely, a detailed list of the main events in the lives of Honinbo Shusai and Go Seigen, a bibliography (almost all Japanese books not available in English), and an index.

Preface

Writing in 1948, Segoe Kensaku wrote of the game in this book, which featured champions of the old and new styles of play, “There has been no game in recent times that has caused as much surprise and as much great fuss among fellow go lovers as this one.”

It still has the power to astonish. I hope, courtesy of a swathe of professional commentaries I have consulted, to enable the reader to understand the game as well as goggle at it. It is covered in great depth, which may initially make it hard to understand, but it was a complex game and I hope to have conveyed some of the complexity. The two players spent months on the game, and in my view such a game deserves in-depth coverage.

I have written other books, published by Slate & Shell and SmartGo Books, with a view to filling in gaps in Go Seigen’s history and the environment in which he played. This game is as different from the games of his later matches as it is possible to be. This was the age of New Fuseki, go’s equivalent to chess’s Hypermodern Openings.

The focus of this book is on New Fuseki. I hope to show that it was an organic process and not, as commonly thought, a spontaneous invention of Go and his friend Kitani.

If I may post here a reminder, the works mentioned have my name on them but they would not appear without my long and much valued collaboration with my late GoGoD colleague T Mark Hall. He provided sources, research, discussions and other support essentially on a full-time basis. I can only hope that, as he claimed, watching commuters trudge to work as he slaved away really was sufficient compensation.

Copyright Page

© 2011 John Fairbairn

All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited.

Slate & Shell
1425 Westshire Lane
Richmond, VA 23238
www.slateandshell.com

Cover design by Laurie M. Crammond

Conversion to SmartGo Books by William Cobb

ISBN of print edition:
1–932001–61–1

Table of Contents

Old Fuseki vs New Fuseki

Copyright Page

Hypermodern Openings

The chapters in gray are included only in the full book.

The Game

Appendix: New Fuseki Examples

Buy This Book

About SmartGo Books

Hypermodern Openings

The Hypermodern School of chess sprang up in the 1920s when Central European masters such as Aaron Nimzowitsch, Richard Reti and Xavier Tartakower challenged the notion of the German Siegbert Tarrasch that chess strategy could be adequately covered by a simple set of classical principles.

There is no direct proof that chess influenced the New Fuseki (Shinfuseki) theory of go, but it is certainly possible. Japan had a strong diplomatic presence in Central Europe at the time, and many embassy staff were go and shogi (Japanese chess) players. Various ideas from chess were discussed as such in Japan: clocks, sealed moves, tournament organization, and so on. Shogi players sometimes took the initiative, but through them the ideas soon reached go.

Whether hypermodernism took the same route or was just something positive in the air everywhere after the destructive first world war is unclear, but there is certainly a time lag. On the other hand, this lag was certainly not as long as until 1933, which date seems most associated with the birth of New Fuseki. In fact, research had begun some years before and by players other than Go Seigen and Kitani Minoru.

The 1920s were, in any case, a time of social unrest in Japan: unhappiness with nationalistic politicians, an increasing crime rate, and a breakdown in traditional morality and family values. There were political assassinations and even a famine in North Japan. Das Kapital appeared in Japan in 1920 and this too had an impact. All sorts of things in Japan were being looked at with fresh eyes.

Many eyes in the case of go, not least because there was suddenly a lot more professional go being played after the formation of the Nihon Ki-in in 1924. There is today, even in Japan, what I regard as an enormous misconception about the birth of the new opening ideas that put more emphasis on the centre than ever before. Go Seigen was asked so many times about how he invented New Fuseki in 1933 that it sometimes seems he became tired of denying it (sometimes he did, sometimes he went along with the myth, sometimes he stressed that if there was an inventor it was Kitani Minoru.) Certainly he and Kitani were central to its success, but the name New Fuseki was a later piece of journalistic hype by Yasunaga Hajime, and not only was research into new ideas under way before Go and Kitani took centre stage, but many other players continued experimenting even while this pair were enjoying all the fame.

Tengen research

One key strand in the history of New Fuseki was the systematic research of Kubomatsu Katsukiyo into the uses of tengen (the centre point) for the first move. One important factor in subsequent history is that Kubomatsu was also Kitani’s first teacher, and they remained close.

Although tengen had been played sporadically even in Edo times, no-one had ever tried it systematically. Kubomatsu first tried it against Murashima Yoshikatsu in 1929. Go also played it that year against Kitani, but only his game is remembered now, although that was mainly because he followed it up with mirror go (and he did not try it again). At that time, Kubomatsu’s involvement was better known, though, because in the February 1930 issue of Kido he published his “Researches on Tengen”. He commented on several tengen games spanning the Edo and Meiji periods, and one of his conclusions was that:

“I cannot say definitely that tengen is bad. However, the reason tengen is hardly ever seen today in pro games is not that it is disadvantageous, but that, as that venerable old man Taisaku said, its variations are limitless. And since one cannot analyse it as thoroughly as the four corners, everyone plays safe and does not even contemplate playing tengen.”

This little insight into pros playing the percentages is of interest anyway, of course, but the reference to Takasaki Taisaku 6-dan may be because he was noted for his diligent research and his style. Having a private income as a landlord, he was happy to play for low fees. This naturally made him popular with younger players, but they also esteemed games with him because they were given high weighting in assessments for diplomas. This was because of the purity of his style. It is also a clear inference from Kubomatsu’s remarks that Takasaki had already been looking at tengen in some detail.

Kubomatsu kept up his own study of tengen games, being fond of large-scale games anyway. Then in the Spring session of the Oteai (the professional rating tournament) in 1933 he had it played against him by Kosugi Tei and that reinforced his inclinations. So, in January 1934, in a radio game with Go Seigen, he tried it again and, having acquired confidence, dared to try it as first move whenever he had Black in the Spring session of the 1934 Oteai. After that Oteai he wrote in the July Kido:

"Since last Autumn I have been studying moves I could use as new ideas against Kitani and Go Seigen. I spared no effort. Among these new ideas, tengen was powerful against fusekis that emphasized the centre or moves along the fourth line such as takamoku (the five-four point), as anyone could realise. I tried investigating as much as possible old games and the go classics where tengen was the chief centre of attention. Playing the first move on tengen at least makes the game difficult. But, when trying it in actual games, considerable ‘feel’ is required, however much study you have put in.

"A chance came to me to try it in practice. This was a radio game against Go Seigen 5-dan sponsored by the AK and BK broadcasting stations (1-minute a move and a thrilling aerial fight for radio fans). Luckily I won, though in truth it was a very difficult fight. Nevertheless, through this fight I acquired a fair amount of confidence, so I waited with the idea of making the Spring Oteai ‘one day a thousand autumns’ (= undertaking a long slog). In Round 1, against Hayashi Yutaro 6-dan I played move 1 on tengen as I had intended all along, but the result was that I lost without counting.

"Yet tengen itself was not related to the outcome. The result was determined by the quality of moves from the middle-game onwards, so my attitude to studying tengen did not change one iota. Thereafter I played all my first moves as Black on tengen and through the experience I got from practice I was able to score reasonable results, which pleased me immensely. In each game the outcome was not governed by tengen, and so the merits of that move could not be definitively determined. However, though it was difficult applying tengen, I clearly learnt from it.

“There were many pros in the B section who had come up with me from the Kansai (the area of Japan around Osaka and Kyoto) and they played tengen too. Looking at their games, I discovered an interesting fact about it. It is clear that most people, when applying tengen, assume they are trying to form a large territory there. Only Tanaka 2-dan, who achieved the honour of first place in this Spring’s championship, generally acted in accordance with the attacking meaning of the single stone on tengen. This is not being wise after the event because he put up good results. I believe this is a truly interesting fact in the study of tengen. The idea of using tengen to build a large territory and the idea of using tengen to attack of course depend on the position and you can’t just say either is good or bad. Yet the demonstration by young Tanaka of the fact that the opinions towards tengen have been a bit askew up to now is, I must say, a major harvest of this spring. In conclusion, the feeling about tengen I was able to formulate this spring is only that it is difficult to apply it later.”

The Tanaka mentioned was Tanaka Fujio, a pupil of Kubomatsu. He was very highly rated as a prospective rival for Go Seigen, but died of consumption in 1940, aged just 23.

To confirm his conclusions, Kubomatsu tried tengen again in the Autumn Oteai, including what some regard as his masterpiece against Onoda Chiyotaro 6-dan where he won by eight points. In his tengen games he scored 3–2 in the Spring session and 2–1 in the Autumn session.

(For those who wish to study tengen, there are now (in 2015) over 150 games with first move at tengen in the GoGoD database. Do not overlook the games of the 17th Chinese master Wang Hannian who liked this first move even though he was playing under old Chinese rules and so there were already the usual four starting stones on the corner star points.)

Analysis of Older Go

But New Fuseki was about much more than tengen, and in fact was about much more than trying odd opening moves. It was a genuine attempt to understand more about the theory of go. That attempt was based on an analysis of classical go. This analysis underlay an explanation of the Showa style of go that was discussed in Kido from 1928 onwards by top players such as Honinbo Shusai, Nakagawa Kamesaburo, Iwasa Kei, Suzuki Tamejiro, and Sego Kensaku.

They regarded the epitome of fuseki in the Meiji era (1868–1912) as that summarised by Honinbo Shuho in his 1882 book Hoen Shinpo. Diagram 1 below was one of many examples of play which Shuho said is good for both sides and would lead to a close game.

Diagram 1

The definition of a close game is not quite what we would expect today. In those days there was no komi, and the best White could hope for was a game where, to use the chess expression, he “has chances”. Much of the New Fuseki experimentation was also based on finding new ideas for White, but by then komi, maybe as small as 2.5 points, was becoming increasingly common, and the experimentation reflected that. When komi was used, it was often in games that players did not regard as quite as serious as the Oteai games that determined promotion and they were more inclined to experiment. The Oteai was then the main tournament and did not use komi. Black’s advantage was moderated there in a different way. Points were given for wins, jigos (draws), and losses based on who had Black and who had White, and what the starting handicap was. There was a long-running debate on what the best allocation of points was, and changes were made, but clearly this had little demonstrable effect on the actual moves played. By the Showa period, which began in 1926, the fuseki had become even more rigorous under the influence of Honinbo Shusai, and Diagram 2 below became the ideal type of opening.

Diagram 2

Diagrams 1 and 2 share the same backbone: Black 1–3–5 and then kosumi at 7. This is now known as the Shusaku opening, even though Honinbo Shusaku didn’t invent it.

The main differences, however, in the styles of play between the two periods are the full extension to Black 15 rather than just A in Diagram 2, and the high extension White 18 rather than B. The new-style extensions were designed to make the extension work not just more efficiently but harder—for example, B is a partial defence against an invasion at C (it also offers a nice haengma developing move at Black 19). This way of thinking was called “harmony breaking”. It was new. Black’s forcing moves of 21, 23, and 25 were also in this mould. This was something only rarely seen in Shuho’s examples. Black 13 and White 14 in Diagram 2 were examples of miai alternatives in the opening, a concept that was developed above all by Honinbo Shuei who spanned the period between Shuho and Shusai.

Actually, it is not much of an exaggeration to say that many of the developments were the result of attempts to overcome the stranglehold of Shusaku’s opening in pre-komi days. It was so powerful—keeping the game tight and under “Black’s control—that Shusaku famously once said, when asked who won a game of his, simply: ”I had Black."

Diagram 3

One way of combating the Shusaku opening was White 2 in Diagram 3. This star point opening was associated mainly with Shuei, and is one reason modern players esteem him so much.

Diagram 4
19 at 9; 21: connects ko

Another approach was to try long corner openings. The Avalanche had not been invented then, and so long openings usually started from the Taisha, famous for its “one thousand variations”. Diagram 4 is one example. In the Shusaku opening, the ladders resulting from the Taisha usually favour White as they happen in the lower right. In this example, Black has chosen a simple line (Black 15 rather than Black at White 16) which is regarded as a local loss for him but is consistent with his overall tight strategy.

Black apparently did not feel entirely satisfied with the results of White’s play in either Diagram 3 or 4 and so he began to develop his own counter-measures, even if it meant abandoning Shusaku’s komoku (diagonal play at A in the next diagram).

Diagram 5

Diagram 5 is one example: when White approached at 4, rather than A Black chose to pincer at 5. This gave good results and so became popular. Pincering has remained a popular policy in modern play although the pincer at B was eventually preferred, and C has grown quickly in popularity recently (Black A is still played, though).

White, in the early 20th century, responded to the pincers in several ways. One was to vary the position in the upper left, as in Diagram 6 below. The example shown is from a 1921 game between Segoe Kensaku (White) and Kogishi Soji.

Diagram 6
19 at 9; 21: connects ko

The takamoku of White 2 was felt to work rather well against the Shusaku kosumi of Black 7, at least in the sense that it gave a confusing game. It was actually a revival of an Edo idea, but in this case White combines the takamoku with the simple Taisha of Diagram 4 and seems to have achieved a good game. White won here, at any rate.

Diagram 7

For a time Black tried to counter the takamoku by making the shimari (corner enclosure move) of Black 3 in Diagram 7, but the popularity of this waned once Black realised it was difficult to play at A and maintain a sensible relation between this move and the position in the upper right.

One ploy tried by Black to get round this impasse was to play Black 3 at A in Diagram 7 first, as a kind of probe. Still, if Black is resorting to a probe as early as his second move, it does seem he may already be on the back foot. White usually responded in the upper left in that case, and naturally tended to come out with sente, so the probe idea fizzled out anyway.

Diagram 8

Another counter was Shusai’s famous White 2 of diagram 8, the move he supposedly reserved for his most important games. Although some saw this as flouting traditional dogma (any sort of parallelism or mirroring was seen to favour Black), Shusai played it for no other reason than just to prevent the Shusaku opening.

Diagram 9

A further idea for White was to avoid both the pincer and the kosumi with the high approach of White 1 in Diagram 9 above. Here we can see a first glimmer of New Fuseki ideas, although the high approach by White had been in use for some time in low-handicap games.

Kitani tried this in a 1927 Oteai game against Kato Shin, and Black responded at once in the upper right where a long variation of the Large Avalanche developed. Psychologically, at least, White must have been satisfied to divert Black from his usual tight play, and doubly so when he won by the large margin of five points.

Diagram 10

The attractions of the high approach, which remains firmly entrenched even in the modern repertoire, were such that it was even played without the star-point backup, as in Diagram 10.

The obvious response for Black, especially if he doesn’t want to get mired in a contact joseki, is A, but responding anyway was seen as undesirable (being forced) and also Black’s shape then was considered inferior to the case where White had approached instead at B and Black responded with the Shusaku kosumi at C, whereas White’s high and distant shape remained flexible and perfectly satisfactory. On top of all that, if Black did not respond, White D was considered very severe.

The upshot was that, despite misgivings, Black felt obliged to defend at A, and this opening became very popular from 1927 onwards, right through the 1930s. It certainly contributed to New Fuseki thinking, but it has remained a firm favourite even today. Then, Black would occasionally defend at B, and sometimes the pincer at E was given a try-out. Almost in desperation, it seems Black dabbled with F, G, or H or playing elsewhere (which is one of the favoured modern responses), but reverted time after time to A.

Black F in Diagram 10 was also developed extensively in joseki terms in the 1930s.

Of course, this pattern was not limited to the first two moves. A famous example is Diagram 11 below, Game 1 of the Go Seigen-Kitani ten-game match described in Kamakura (published by Slate & Shell), although by that time (1939) we are in the realms of Integrated Fuseki rather than New Fuseki (that is, a blend of old and new but with emphasis on making sure josekis relate to the overall game).

Diagram 11

Diagram 12

There was similar thinking as regards White 2 in Diagram 12. This appears to have occurred only once as the start of a game (Onoda Chiyotaro used it against Kitani in 1929), but elsewhere Black was generally reluctant to play A, even if he did in the end, as this seems too submissive, acquiescing in being forced.

Diagram 13

You might be astonished to hear that Kitani’s reply in the game just mentioned was at B in Diagram 12 (Black 3 here). This seems rather New Fuseki-ish, especially when you consider the date, but the rest of the opening (shown in Diagram 13) suggests that that was not Kitani’s intention at all. He seems more concerned with outdoing even Shusaku as a model of tight Black play.

The full book continues this chapter with sections on the Chinese Influence, the Three-Three Point, Go and Kitani, New Fuseki Theory, and more, followed by a deep analysis of the game.