TIG 2008: Kobayashi Fuseki
Last week I was forced to play against the Kobayashi fuseki, which is some sort of the mini chinese openning. Here you have the traditional sequence:
In fact, I liked the way the game developed for my opponent after Kobayashi's, so I decided to give it a try on my next game.
Today I played my first game in the Ibero-American Tournament 2008, against Hugo Scolnik. He was listed as a 1k in the registration process, but his currently unstable KGS level placed him near myself, at 5k.
After Black 5, white can answer at A, B for deffensive moves, make a low pincer at C, or ignore the threat and play D in order to avoid black finishing the sequence. What Black really desires is to get lots of influence at the bottom of the board, so moves which make him strong here (most attach-josekis) are welcomed as well as an approach at E.
In the actual game, white made a single-space jump and I made the proper extension to K4. Then he made an invasion exactly in the middle of the right side and I didn't know how to answer it properly, but I managed to get a decent result.
All in all, it was a very interesting game, involving an almost-seki where I finally decided to play safely and avoid the ko, one too-late invasion on a corner, and a huge yose blunder. Even then, after these mistakes I managed to retain some of the advantatge I had won in the middlegame and finally won by 0.5 points (lucky man).
Here you have the full game:
If you want to know more about Kobayashi's Fuseki, don't forget to read the extensive review made by Charles Matthew's during 5 of his excellent articles Here.
