Would the "knowledge of certain joseki" be considered the knowledge of a collection of basic josekis?

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A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

Sure for some Fuseki, you might need to know some joseki, they probably aren't in that 38 basic joseki book, though some books have special sections for Chinese Fuseki joseki or enclosure joseki since they are so popular, and since often's teacher was unwilling or unable to explain this to him, I would get a different teacher. Furthermore, when starting out most players won't encounter the correct joseki for that Fuseki anyway, so it isn't so important, as knowing things like when to pincher, when to build a moyo, when to take sente, when to invade, or reduce territory etc... Some of these concepts may imply certain joseki, but there isn't any reason a teacher couldn't teach them as necessary, instead of as a prerequisite to more advanced material. IMO, a teacher's more valuable asset would be explaining how to deal with common but difficult non-joseki situations that arise, out of a Fuseki.

You realise it's a two player game and you don't always get to take Black yes?

In '76 I saw a go club in Kyoto and went in. I was told that there was a class in session with an 8 dan pro, which I could join. I did. In response to a question about playing joseki, he gave the above reply.

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I wonder what he would have said as a 1d amateur.

Probably that his 8dan pro teacher also told him the same thing when he was 1d amateur. lol

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A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

Duh, what are you going to do if white doesn't plop down nirensei? Resign? In all seriousness, this is just another reason why Fuseki is more than a 5 move sequence in the beginning, though many people who are ignorant of the finer details of how a Fuseki works, may think there is no point in learning a Fuseki because they can't predict what the other person is going to do, or they have a preconceived notion of where their moyo is supposed to develop which doesn't happen, or need to learn all these unnecessary Joseki, all these assertions are based on ignorance.

None of my regular opponents play nirensei as white, they're mean.

My point is, if you're going to study fuseki, restricting your study only to the fuseki you play is going to be problematic when you get to higher levels.

I agree, however I may never have to consider a 3-5 vs. a 5-4, since I won't(in the near future) play either of those as white or black, however if a player is interested in a 3-5 opening they may want to consider the ramifications of a 5-4 or 3-4 in different configurations, these strategies may indeed depend on some very specific joseki knowledge, which may not be considered basic. In my or others cases, an approach move joseki may not be the appropriate response to any of these openings. The biggest problem I have is finding the players to hone these openings. I can study the takamoku, but I only play one once every 10 to 20 games, so working out the details for these openings is difficult. I think people who have more time to spend would switch Fuseki from time to time to get an idea about how they work, but you need to start somewhere, and many Fuseki ideas generalize pretty well, unlike joseki. For example shimari is a shimari and a moyo is a moyo, there are many ways build them, and they are likely to arise out of many Fuseki, for example both the 3-5 3-4 and 3-4 5-4 enclosures can be built multiple ways.

Restricting your study only to {fill in the blank} is problematic.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

This idea kind of makes sense, but I wonder about efficiency. For example, is it possible that you get more bang for your buck studying tsumego for an hour than studying joseki for the same time?

If so, it would still be ideal to study everything wothout restriction, but given a finite amount of time to study in life, why not focus on areas that are more efficient for helping you to achieve your goals (eg. getting stronger)?

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I think it depends. Since we can't possibly study everything all the time, choices have to be made.
If you lose your games because of your weak reading - study tsumego, its more efficient.
If you lose your games because of opening blunders - study joseki and fuseki, its more efficient.
Rinse, repeat.

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- Bantari
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Cho Chikun's "All About Life and Death" has some tsumego application problems, I wish there were more books like that, where you can work at solving the problem, but then it is also serves a useful strategic purpose. There could be a large number of standard side L&D situations, but he left those for the student to solve. I suspect that much of the text in Chinese and Japanese books discusses context of the problems, however that is lost on me.

You need a larger collection of Asian go books which includes such problem books
Have you read Tami's review here?

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A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

People can study different things and can't study all things at the same time. I believe it is best to study what is the weakest link in your Go, but regardless...

When someone announces he studies fuseki to avoid the study of joseki this is akin to someone studying the endgame to avoid counting. This sounds stupid, but how about: "By studying shuban I could avoid over-reliance on moku-san." It is wrong in so many ways, but while it is rare someone so stubbornly exposes himself and his wrong attitude, I believe, this attitude in particular is fairly common among half-understanding shodans and other players.

Generally, that is true, which is why the saying about studying joseki and losing two stones in strength. I got a couple of joseki books when I was 4 kyu - 2 kyu, but I did not seriously study joseki until I was 2 dan, and I have no regrets about that.





A major problem with focusing your study on what you need to most, or where you are weak, is how do you know? Very often in the Big Question Mark section on Sensei's Library someone will ask, What do I do in this situation? Very often the answer is, Don't get into that situation. The important errors came earlier. Left to their own devices, the players who ask those questions would study the wrong things, because they do not know where their problems lie.

Now it is possible to become a high level amateur dan player with glaring weaknesses, because you have other strengths. There are many examples, both in the East and West. So if you want to concentrate your study on one area or a few, why not?

But if you think, as I do, that having glaring weaknesses is not so good, then study everything. For one thing, doing so will help you to identify where you need to concentrate your efforts.

Bantari's point about studying what causes you to lose games is a good one. Something that I repeatedly advise is trying to determine the last game losing play. Not so easy, but it is a good exercise.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

A very good point.

But I think there must be some kind of a solution or at least a clue somewhere there. Ask stronger player, submit your game to GTL, show it here, analyze it yourself, something...

From experience, in my particular case, I could always tell what part of the game caused me the most trouble - reading, strategy, knowledge (joseki, etc.) - sometimes very particular, like I should read up how to deal with a particular joseki or fuseki, for example. It was a feeling that I have hard time to cope with a specific thing. And then you study that for a while until the feeling goes away. It might not always be the absolutely most appropriate thing to study, but you have to start somewhere.

The alternative, by and large, would be to say that it does not really matter and you need to study everything. In the long run - this is certainly true, but at a particular moment - not even the pros can study everything all the time. You need to make a choice, and the question is: how?

Some people just study what they feel like at the moment, what gives them the most pleasure. And this is a good approach as well.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

How do you expect to be able to deal with an opponent who plays those if you never see them as worth looking at?

You're a real winner aren't you. Did you even read my post?

Insults aside, you can learn about them by playing them yourself instead of waiting for that 1 in 20 games.