The subject of the Chinese opening came up at Thursday’s meeting, so I thought I’d  put together a short post describing the opening and its common variants.

The diagram below the fold lets you explore the various Chinese fuseki positions and a couple examples from recent games of mine.

Ironically, the Chinese fuseki was not invented in China; it’s only named that because it first saw widespread use by Chinese players starting in the 1960s. There are examples of these openings in historical Japanese games – the micro-Chinese appeared in a number of games in the 19th century, including some games by Shusaku, and there’s an example of the mini-Chinese in a game by Honinbo Dochi in 1710!

The most important aspect of the Chinese fuseki (the aspect that causes an opening to be classified as a Chinese variant) is the relationship between the 3-4 stone and the asymmetrical stone near the middle hoshi point, which forms a sort of hybrid enclosure/extension.

I’ve had good results with Chinese variants recently, so I suggest giving them a try.

More information can be found at Sensei’s Library.

• Chinese Fuseki
• Mini-Chinese (also known as small Chinese)
• Micro-Chinese (AKA mini-mini-Chinese)