Openings are of great importance for playing Renju. Many people think that opening choice is more important than in chess. Incorrect play at the beginning of the game leads to inevitable defeat.

Openings are classified according to the 2nd and 3rd moves. White must make the second move close to the black stone (recall that the black stone is always placed in the center of the field). Accordingly, White has only 2 options for the move: vertical (it is equivalent to horizontal) and diagonal (abbreviated as B and D). Black makes the third move within the central 5×5 square. There are only 26 such moves. These moves are called canonical openings.

The further game depends on the choice of the third move by Black. Black either gains an advantage or loses it. Sometimes the odds are about equal. Those. debuts are different in terms of profitability, therefore, in official competitions, this or that opening regulation is necessarily used to equalize the chances of winning.

debuts
List of canonical debuts
Number Opening name Japanese name Color preference (according to IFR regulations)
1B Cold Star 寒星, Kansei Black Advantage
2B Valley 溪月, keigetsu Black advantage
3B Distant star 疏星, sosei Equal chances
4B Flower 花月, kagetsu Black wins
5B Remaining 殘月, Zangetsu Black advantage
6B Rain 雨月, ugetsu Black advantage
7B Gold Star; Venus 金星, kinsei Black advantage
8B Pine 松月, sho:getsu Black’s marginal advantage
9B Hill 丘月, kyu:getsu Equal chances
10B New Moon 新月 Shingetsu Black Advantage
11B Lucky star 瑞星, zuisei Equal odds
12В Mountain 山月, sangetsu Black’s marginal advantage
13B Walk 游星, yu:sei White wins
1D Asteroid 長星, cho:sei White’s marginal advantage
2E Gorge 峽月, kyo:getsu Black advantage
3D Constant 恆星, ko:sei Black advantage
4D Water 水月, Suigetsu Black wins
5D Meteor 流星, ryu:sei White’s marginal advantage
6D Cloud 雲月, Ungetsu Black advantage
7D Bay 浦月, hogetsu Black wins
8D Storm 嵐月, Rangetsu Black Advantage
9D Silver Moon 銀月, Gingetsu Black Advantage
10D Radiance 明星, myojo: black advantage
11D Hillside 斜月, shagetsu Equal chances
12D Glory 名月, meigetsu Black advantage
13D Comet 彗星, suisei White wins

Opening regulations
As mentioned above, after the debut, players have different chances of winning. Therefore, for major competitions, additional rules are established: Debut regulations. These are additional rules for the beginning of the game, which, in theory, should equalize the chances of white and black to win.

For competitions at the level of the world championship or continents, such regulations are adopted and established by the RIF (International Renju Federation).

For example, a game according to the old MFR opening regulations begins with the first player placing three stones on the board – a black stone in the center of the board, a white stone next to the first one, a black stone within the central 5 × 5 square. After that, his opponent chooses a color. If he chose white, he makes the 4th move to any place on the board. If he chose black, then the player with the first number makes the next move. After choosing a color and setting the fourth move, the player playing black must put two options for the fifth move on the board. The white player chooses black’s fifth move and plays his sixth move. After that, the game proceeds according to the usual rules. As you can see, a rather entertaining procedure for drawing the beginning of the game.

There are a lot of opening regulations. For example, the Yamaguchi regulations are the current regulations of the world championships, Taraguchi, Sakata, Soosyrv are the regulations of the correspondence world championships, etc. and so on.

Source: wiki