Thank you EdLee. I guess that relying too much on joseki makes one insecure when the opponent deviates from it. For curiosity, in the actual game I replied as in the last diagram, turning to the center.

Completely disagree.

Remembering myself as a beginner, the first few joseki I learned were like major epiphanies for me. They meant the difference between floating aimlessly and cluelessly through the first 50 moves and having some kind of aim and direction in my opening moves. So that I could concentrate on floating cluelessly and aimlessly through the rest of the game.

About creativity - in beginner games, whatever joseki you 'know' will most likely be diverted from on move 2 or so, so you still need to be creative. But knowing where the joseki *would* go if it went properly - gives you some idea about what to do with diversions. Especially in simple joseki with clear strategic aims, like beginners should learn.

So, while I don't think beginners should look at, for example, taisha, or that they should actually try to "study" any joseki in-depth, a shallow exposure to a few simple joseki patters is very important, in my view. And I think this is what we are talking about here.

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- Bantari
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Yes. In Kageyama's Lessons in the fundamentals of Go, Chapter 7 is How to study joseki --
you may enjoy it. It's a very nice read.

IMO, age might be a factor. Kids may be more harmed by rote memorization of joseki than adults, because I think they learn differently.

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be immersed

Well... in general, you are probably right.

But - getting exposed to a few of the the 3-4 move sequences which constitute the basic josekis I am thinking of - I would not call that 'rote memorization'. Its more like a direction-giver or idear-jumpstarter, something like that. It was of great value to me as a beginner, and I think other beginners might benefit greatly as well.

PS>
I think this all touches on another thing we have not really defined in this context: what do we mean by 'learning joseki'?
Might be a good place to start, or it may happen we are talking about different things here.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

My own thought on this is that it makes sense to use standard joseki to illustrate basic ideas for beginners. How to surround an invasion, how to avoid being sealed in by an approach move, how to take away the base of an approach stone with a pincer... there is no sense in not using the joseki as demonstrations. But if you're not encouraging people to remember and replay specific moves, then I don't think of it as "learning joseki".

Maybe someone should post some middlegame joseki for beginners. Joseki are not only about the corner openings.

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

I think the attach-extend joseki is good to learn because it can be applied as a shape in many situations in the opening and the middle-game. It can apply as 4-4 joseki, 3-4 joseki, and generic side joseki.

Apart from that, I would stress simple variations for corner joseki, where each side extends to get a base without too much fighting, as they can give beginners a good idea of what each side is aiming for with that particular corner move and approach.