The Opening is the most difficult part of the game. This is the biggest reason why beginners don’t like to play on the 19×19 board. The board is huge and beginners don’t know where to play, so they immediately try to start a fight somewhere. It is understandable, but this makes improvement difficult. It is very hard to get rid of bad opening habits. To avoid this everyone should learn a little about the first move of the game.

Professionals always start the game in corners instead of the centre, because it is easier to make territory there. To secure 4 points of territory in the centre you must use 8 stones, but in the corner you need only 4 stones. In other words, Developing in the corner is 2 times faster than in the centre. Of course territory in the corner is very limited so big fights in the centre cannot be omitted. In the opening you should think more about corners than the centre. Okay, we know that we should start in the corner but there are still two big questions.

Which corner I should take in the first place?

You can always play anywhere you like. In the 1st World Mind Sport Games tournament for men, Jan Hora 6dan from Czech played a very rare opening with his first move on the 8×6 point. After the game many «strong players» questioned this move, but the truth is that you have freedom in choosing your moves. No one should complain.

On the other hand there is a tradition in Japanese Go about choosing first move. In the Golden Age of Japanese Go the most popular first move was the 3×4 point in upper right corner, on the third line from the right side. At that time the culture of student and teacher was very strong. The teacher always took the white stones. The student always played in the upper right corner, because with this he made a bow to show respect for his opponent (teacher).

There are more reasons to choose the upper right corner, but to understand them you need to have some basic knowledge about openings. This post isn’t about openings, so you will just have to believe me about the 3×4 point. When one plays 3×4 in the upper right side of board, there are two very good points for white to play. The first one is to attack the 3×4 immediately. The second is to occupy the upper left corner – preparing himself to attack the upper right corner and building a framework on the upper side at the same time.

Back to the topic, you can assume that these two moves are obvious to a teacher. A student shows respect by playing on the far side of the board, so that the teacher won’t have to reach across the board to make one of these moves. Now it’s clear why Go Seigen played in the upper right corner in this game against Segoe Kensaku.

Where I should play in the corner, 3×3, 3×4, 4×4 point or something else?

You probably know that there are plenty of options for the first move. Today I will tell you about a move called san-san (3×3). The purpose of this move is to secure territory in the corner with only one stone.

The consequences of this move are that 3×3 is very easy to attack by playing on the 4×4 point to gain profit by building a strong position in the centre. In other words, a 3×3 point’s influence over the rest of the board can be very easily restricted.

Of course 3×3 is very strong, so if your opponent won’t attack you by playing at 4×4, it’s easy to develop your position very quickly. You can extend around the side star point — C in the Diagram — or add another stone to the corner — A or B on diagram.

Playing san-san is a very difficult strategy, so you won’t find many examples of this in recent professional games (only very aggressive players use it).