The Go Opening (Fuseki): Where to Play Your First Moves

The Go opening is about claiming corners and sides as cheaply as possible, not about fighting. The Japanese name for it is fuseki (the opening stage of the game, before the groups start touching). Your first stones should go in empty corners, then on empty sides, and the point of each one is to stake out a large area with a single move, knowing you’ll come back later to finish the job. Almost every serious game, at every level, starts the same way: four corners, then the sides.

If you are still working out what the stones do at all, start with the rules of Go and come back here.

Why the Go opening starts in the corners

A corner is the cheapest place on the board to make territory, because two edges do half the work for you. To fence off nine points in the corner you need six stones. To fence off the same nine points against one edge you need nine stones. In the open centre, with no edges helping at all, you need twelve.

That is the whole reason for the standard order: corners, then sides, then the centre. It is also why the centre is not worthless, just expensive. You take it later, with stones you already have nearby, rather than paying full price for it on move three. Go strategy for beginners covers the same idea as a general habit.

The three corner points: 4-4, 3-4 and 3-3

Corner points are named by how far they sit from the two edges. The 4-4 point is four lines in from each edge, the 3-4 point is three lines from one edge and four from the other, and the 3-3 point is three from each.

The 4-4 point (A) is the most common first move in modern Go. On a real board it has a small dot printed on it, which is why it is also called the star point (hoshi). It is fast and balanced: it faces both sides equally and points outward into the centre, so one stone claims a big loose area. The trade is that it does not actually hold the corner. Your opponent can drop a stone underneath it at the 3-3 point and live there, which is common enough that the 3-3 invasion has a page of its own.

The 3-4 point (B) leans toward territory. It takes more of the corner than a 4-4 stone does, but it only faces one direction, so it needs a second stone to finish the corner off. If you like solid ground more than open frameworks, this is your move.

The 3-3 point (C) takes the corner outright. Nobody can invade underneath it, because there is no underneath. The cost is that it is low and small: a stone on the third line builds a wall along the edge but has little effect on the rest of the board. It is a perfectly reasonable move, just a modest one.

Enclosing a corner, and approaching one

A stone on the 3-4 point with one more stone added becomes a corner enclosure (shimari), which makes the corner genuinely yours. The most common one puts the second stone a knight’s move away.

If your opponent gets there first, you stop the enclosure by playing an approach move (kakari) against their corner stone instead. The usual approach to a 4-4 stone is also a knight’s move, played along one of the two sides.

An approach almost always gets an answer, and the back-and-forth that follows is a joseki, a standard corner sequence that is reckoned fair for both players. You do not need to memorise them. You do need to recognise when one has finished.

Extending along the side

Once the corners are taken, the big points are on the sides, usually on the third or fourth line. How far to extend depends on how much strength you are extending from. Two rules of thumb cover almost every case: a two-space extension from a single stone, and a three-space extension from a two-stone wall.

The reasoning is simple. If your opponent invades the gap, you want to be able to attack the invading stone from both sides without your own stones becoming weak. A wider extension claims more, but leaves a hole big enough for someone to live in. A narrower one is safe and slow. Good shape in Go goes further into why these distances work.

Big points and urgent points

There is one exception to “play the biggest open area”, and it matters more than the rule itself. If a group of yours (or your opponent’s) is weak, the move that settles it is urgent, and urgent beats big. The classic phrasing of the proverb is “play urgent points before big points”.

A quick test before you take an open side: if you play here and your opponent gets the next move, can they attack something of yours immediately? If yes, deal with that first. Losing a group in the opening is worth far more than any side point, and it is the most common way a good-looking opening falls apart.

When the opening ends

The opening is over when there are no large empty areas left. In practice that means every corner has been taken or approached, the big side points are gone, and the next moves are all about attacking, defending or invading rather than claiming. On a 19x19 board this happens somewhere between move 40 and move 60. Nobody announces it; you just notice that all the remaining moves are small, and the middle game has started.

The first nine moves of a 19x19 game

Here is one plausible opening. It is not the only good one, and strong players deviate on move one, but it shows the shape of the thing: four corners, then the four big side points, then the first approach.

Notice that nothing touches anything for eight moves. Both players are staking out large areas at maximum speed, and neither gains by starting a fight while there is free ground left. Move 9 is the first move that is about the opponent rather than the board.

The opening on a 9x9 board

On a 9x9 board the opening lasts one or two moves. There are no big side points to take, because there are no big sides, and the first stones are usually in contact by move five or six.

The centre point (tengen) is a serious move here, which it never is on a full board: it is only four lines from every edge, so it works with all four corners at once. The 3-3 points are the other standard choice, and on this board the 3-3 is an ordinary opening move rather than an invasion. The 4-4 points are playable but leave more to invade than they do on a big board, because there is less room to make up for it elsewhere. 9x9 Go strategy goes through each option, or you can play a 9x9 game and try them out.

The fastest way to get a feel for openings is to play a lot of short games rather than to study long ones. Start a game on whichever board size you’re comfortable with, take the corners first, and see what your opponent does about it. If you want the sizes compared properly, 9x9 vs 13x13 vs 19x19 covers that.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best first move in Go?

There is no single best first move, but the 4-4 star point is the most common choice at every level, followed by the 3-4 point. Both take a corner, which is what matters. A first move in the centre or on the side of a 19x19 board is a real handicap, because it claims far less for the same stone.

What is the star point in Go?

The star points (hoshi) are the marked points printed on the board: nine of them on a 19x19 board, five on a 9x9. On a full board the corner star points are the 4-4 points. They have no special rule attached; the dots are there to help you place handicap stones and to make it easier to read the board at a glance.

Should I play 4-4 or 3-4?

Play the 4-4 point if you want a fast, flexible game with influence toward the centre, and accept that the corner can be invaded at 3-3 later. Play the 3-4 point if you would rather hold actual territory and are willing to spend a second move enclosing the corner. Neither is better; 4-4 is easier to handle while you are learning, because fewer things can go wrong with it.