Welcome to San Ren Sei: The Cosmic Style
The San Ren Sei opening, also known as Three Star Opener, has long been a beloved fuseki for go enthusiasts of all levels. Though professional players have moved away from San Ren Sei in recent years, it remains an extremely effective opener for kyu players up to 5d on KGS.
Modern professionals may avoid San Ren Sei due to new and revised theories that exploit its weaknesses. However, most amateur players lack the precise knowledge needed to handle this classic opening properly.
When utilized correctly, San Ren Sei can quickly establish an influential cosmic-style framework.
In this course, you'll learn the key San Ren Sei joseki and fuseki to build a robust cosmic moyo. We'll study vital invasion and overplay techniques so you can punish opponents who venture too far into your framework. Your kyu and low dan adversaries will struggle to mount effective offenses inside your cosmic influence.
To accelerate your practical command of cosmic go, we'll work through game situations and problems inspired by professional kifu. These hands-on exercises will hone your ability to apply San Ren Sei principles. With a honed cosmic style, you'll be able to dictate the direction of the game right from the opening moves.
San Ren Sei may be rare in the modern professional scene, but it remains a gateway for amateurs to unlock masterful cosmic play. Join us to begin mastering this timeless unorthodox fuseki and start dominating your local Go scene!
The San Ren Sei opener epitomizes an aggressive cosmic style. Rather than defending territory, Black uses their frameworks to relentlessly attack. The moyo and influence serve as weapons to bully invaders, not static points to protect.
However, even all-out aggression requires flexibility. Avoid complicated battles that destroy your structures. If conceding some points diffuses the fight, do so without hesitation. Rebuild your walls and launch fresh offenses elsewhere.
With San Ren Sei, claim the big points to provoke anxiety. Pressure your opponent into overplays. Extract profits without capture. Build momentum moyo by moyo, framework by framework. Yet be ready to adapt when needed.
Walk the razor's edge between determination and flexibility. Wield your cosmic influence as a bludgeon and shield in equal measure. Master this blend of unbridled aggression and precise control to command the board from your very first stones!
Recommended Josekis
Following Videos are from Essential Josekis. If you are interested in learning more Josekis, then please check out Essential Josekis
3-3 Invasions
2 Space High Pincer
2 Space High Pincer is a great Joseki to use when trying to build influences and moyos. You will learn how to answer 2 Space High Pincer in this video, but this also means you will learn how to play 2 Space High Pincer.
Later in the video, we will take a look at how to properly follow up this Joseki in order to play Cosmic Style
1 Space Low Pincer
How to Deal with Pincers as White
One Space Low Pincer
Five Star Opener Basics
As I have stated earlier, San Ren Sai, a.k.a. Three Star Opener, is an aggressive strategy.
Most of the time, you should just allow your opponents to have what he/she wants. However, when it comes to possibility of ruining your moyo, you should mercilessly pour aggression on your opponent and profit from it.
I will be saying “attack for profit” a lot of times throughout the course, and it could mean a few things:
By attacking, build another moyo
By attacking, build influence
By attacking, stack thickness
By attacking, turn your moyo into a huge territory
By attacking, leak into your opponent’s moyo
By attacking, leak into your opponent’s territory
By attacking, weaken your opponent’s other stones
By attacking, get some extra stones in the middle of the aboard so you can launch another attack on another weak group
When playing Cosmic Style, just use the old 3-3 Joseki to get a complete and thick influence.
You don’t have to try to get a sente at the end of the Joseki when playing Cosmic Style in 3-3 Invasion
1 Space Low Pincer is a common Joseki to find in San Ren Sei and Cosmic Style.
You MUST master this Joseki in order to use San Ren Sei.
Two Space High Pincer
When you are playing as white and you want to prevent your opponent from forming huge moyos, then you may use these Josekis to break the board.
If you use this Joseki in Kyu games, then, the chances are, your opponent does not know how to answer you and throw the game after the Joseki.
2-5 & 2-4 Invasions
This kind of invasion is kind of common to see when you are playing Cosmic Style.
As long as you know how to deal with it, you will be very happy to see your opponents playing these 2nd line moves!
Dealing with Invasions
A huge moyo game like this is not too uncommon especially if 2 romantic players are playing the game.
If you are playing as the white player, then you definitely have to know the combinations I have shown you in this tutorial.
If you are playing as the black player, then you MUST know how to deal with white’s invasions as shown in the video.
In Kyu games, if you get to play 5 Star Opener, then you should have no reason to lose.
If your opponent takes away your corner, then just say “thank you” and stack your thickness. It is good for you.
If your opponent approaches the corner, then that is virtually immediate win for you.
If you are playing as the white player, try not to allow this kind of 5 Star Opener for your opponent.
three Star Opener Introduction
When you are playing a game, just keep those 8 points in mind.
Our goal is not capturing stones but gaining profits while attacking your opponent’s stones. Capturing stones is the last thing we want to do because it might backfire at us. However, in Kyu games, our opponents tend to not recognize that their stones are dying, so always watch out for that. If you notice your opponent is leaving their half-dead stones alone and playing elsewhere, just spend another move to make sure they are dead. If this kind of thing happens in higher ranked games, then it probably is your opponent purposely trying to let you waste moves on worthless stones since trying to save them will cause even more damage.
BUT! In Kyu games, you don’t have to worry about that!
Also remember that although Cosmic Style can be utilized by both black and white players, San Ren Sei is black’s fuseki.
Which means, when you are playing as the black player, you do not have to worry about invading your opponents. All you have to do is to build your own thing and lure your opponent to invade. In lower dan and Kyu games, more often than not, your opponents will invade too deeply or invade into places where they really shouldn’t be invading… a.k.a. overplays.
When you are playing as black, you MUST only focus on building your own moyo and NOT invade if you want to play fun Cosmic game.
If you are playing as white and you don’t really know how to reduce/invade, then try to break the board ASAP and play as solidly as possible. Reducing requires you to have pretty accurate estimation skill, so that is very difficult for Kyu players to do so. Invading into a cosmic requires some intense reading ability and a descent Joseki bank, and I wouldn’t expect that from a Kyu player.
In lower dan and Kyu games, all you have to do is to break the board into pieces and wait for your opponents to make mistakes and punish those mistakes. You don’t have to go out of your way to try to make something happen.
A fun thing is that, in lower ranked games, players often waste their moves on pointless things. If you are able to detect that and grab yourself some big points, then you can immediately play Cosmic Style as white… and play even more intense Cosmic Style as black. So always try to detect your opponents’ pointless moves.
Common Invasions
3 Space Extension’s High Invasion is a painful one if you do not know how to deal with it.
First of all, attaching either on top or bottom is a wrong answer.
When your opponent just “hangs” a stone between your 3 space extension that is on the 4th line, then you should try your best to attack it. During the process, you will get something in return.
You will either hurt your opponents’ other stones or be able to launch a scary attack on the invading stones… Or maybe even be able to capture the invading stones if your opponents cannot answer your right.
Dealing with this kind of invasion can be a headache, but you have to memorize it if you want to become a solid dan player someday. You can also play this kind of invasions in your own games and have a lot of fun because I bet not many people know how to properly handle this invasion.
Overplaying is not a bad thing if you can be sure that your opponent doesn’t know how to deal with your overplays. Being able to detect “suckers” and abuse those “suckers” is also an incredible ability to have.
I believe you will instantly recognize all the invasions shown in this video.
In this video, we will go over some of the MOST common invasions that may happen when you play San Ren Sei. As soon as you get these down, you will have the ability to grow your moyo like crazy!
Here is all you have to know about this video:
If you have a chance to attack, don’t allow your opponent to comfortably be alive. Be a bully and torture your opponent as long as possible.
Don’t try to make points with your thickness and influence. Use them for aggressive reasons.
When you think your opponent is overplaying, then you are probably right, and there might be a way to punish your opponent.
If your opponent is trying to pick a fight or play too loosely in your area, then have a good fight. Don’t be afraid
Again, be flexible. You may not always get what you want, but you can get something better in return.
I am not going to force you to memorize all the sequences because that is too boring and almost pointless.
I hope you can see the underlying principles and theories behind the moves. As long as you understand it, you will have no problems memorizing the sequences. It is like understanding a math equation. As soon as you understand the equation, you can solve all the math problems that use this equation.
High Invasion
Low Invasion
When dealing with low invasions to high 3 space extension, a lot of Kyu players try to capture the stone.
That’s not how it works!
You can either solidify one side of your territory while driving that invading stone out to attack it, or you can completely lock that invading stone inside and keep it low to gain incredible thickness outside.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to properly deal with low invasions to high 3 space extensions.
This is easier to memorize than high invasion sequences because all you have to do is to either push your opponent down to the side of the board or drive the stone out to attack.
Let’s Solve some problems!
When you are watching following videos, please actually try to answer my questions. This will help you to learn San Ren Sei and Cosmic Style.
If you have trouble finding big points and building your cosmic in your own games, then please come back as many times as you can to watch these videos to increase your “cosmic go sense”.
One day, you will be able to answer all the questions asked in the video. And that is the day when you turn into a true Cosmic Style-er who can swim around dan games and beat people with Cosmic Style.
If have stated that San Ren Sei can be used until you hit 5 dan on KGS, but I didn’t say Cosmic Style is only effective until 5 dan. Professional players still use Cosmic style in their professional games, so you can stop worrying about if you are wasting your time and pour your heart into Cosmic Style if that is what you love.
At the end, I would like to mention again that…
You will be learning a lot about how to grab big points, how to properly attack for profit, how to decide if you want a fight of not, and how to be flexible once mastering all the contents in this section. That is the true value of San Ren Sei.
I could make videos on how to properly attack for profit, but that is going to be a difficult video to watch and learn because all we do is talk about theories. However, in San Ren Sei, we can use real-life examples to show you how to properly attack and such. The best thing is that you are probably already familiar with these situations, so you can adapt to it really fast.
I hope you can learn as much as I did from San Ren Sei, my friend.
