Iijima Bishop Pullback.

Static rook, against a ranging rook · castles into Left Mino, the low form · 飯島流引き角 Iijima-ryū hikikaku

The idea

The Iijima Bishop Pullback is a static rook plan for when the opponent has chosen a ranging rook. You never push the pawn in front of your bishop, so its diagonal stays shut for the whole opening. Once the left silver has moved up to 7h, the bishop steps back to 7i and comes out again on 5g, the square your centre pawn left.

That leaves 8h and 7i free for the king, which goes into a Left Mino: king 8h, silver 7h, golds 6i and 5h. With the 7g pawn still at home this Mino is flat and low, the same Mino a ranging rook player builds, so the Fujii System has nothing to aim at near your king.

And because your diagonal is shut, the opponent can never offer a bishop trade, which rules out every bishop-exchange ranging rook. Iijima Eiji developed the plan and won the Masuda Kōzō Award for it. It is mostly played as White, with the same moves on the other side of the board: the bishop goes to 3a and out to 5c, and the king goes to 3a or 2b.

Playing it as Black too was Iijima’s own step, and that is the line shown here.

How it goes together

Both sides’ moves are shown, because this opening is an agreement rather than a system: one player cannot reach it alone, so a one-sided list of moves would be a fiction.

The plan once you are set up

• Start with the rook pawn to 2f and the right silver to 4h, and go on only once the opponent has swung the rook. If they push their own rook pawn for a static rook game instead, change plans: the sources rate this start as slightly worse against a static rook.
• Push the centre pawn to 5f and bring the left silver up to 7h. Then pull the bishop back to 7i and bring it out on 5g.
• Castle: the right gold to 5h, then the king to 6h, 7i and 8h. The gold on 6i stays where it is.
• Push the rook pawn to 2e early, then attack on the right with the rook pawn and the right silver: the pawn to 3f, the silver to 3g and 4f, and the pawn to 3e, with the bishop on 5g behind them. Bringing the knight to 3g instead is the other way to go on.

What to watch for

• The bishop’s head. With the bishop on 5g, the fifth file in front of it is the weak point of this setup, so try to start your own attack before the opponent starts one there.
• The king’s walk. The bishop has to leave before the king can move in, so this Mino takes longer to get into than the usual Left Mino.
• As White against a Central Rook, the weak moment is the move between the silver going to 3b and the bishop going to 3a. One source shows Black striking at once in the centre.

What it is played against

A ranging rook player has several answers. One is to keep their own bishop’s diagonal open, with a silver in front of it ready to break in the centre; from there they can also build an Ishida.

Another is to meet the rook-pawn attack with the bishop on 3c and the rook on 2b, an Opposing Rook, often with an Anaguma, as White did in a 2015 professional game against this setup. Against a static rook opponent the plan does not come up at all.