Hello all,

I'm looking for a book suitable for learning contemporary openings and some modern joseki.
I feel that the newly released 21st Century Dictionary of Basic Joseki, Volume 1 would be a good future investment and reference work for joseki studies.

Do you think I, in regards to my rank, would make do with the Joseki Dictionary or should I aim at a modern style opening book as well? If so, should I get 'new moves', 21st new openings or perhaps some other brilliant book that covers modern openings?

I would really appreciate some input from you guys

/Fredrik

I know all those chess players like to learn their openings by heart, but in go, if you want to make quick progress, I would advise you to forget about joseki and get a good tesuji problem book and a good life & death problem book instead. When studying a joseki, you are effectively memorising one fixed set of good moves, and all your work is in vain once the position gets weird and chaotic. When studying tesuji, you are learning the art of finding good moves yourself. It's like going out and buying a single fish vs. going out and buying yourself a fishing net. Plus, I've seen too many players that stop listening to their tesuji sense and play a move just because it's the only joseki move they know. This will kill your game and make it much more 1-dimensional.

As for memorising openings: absolutely forget about it completely! If you want to learn something about the flow of the stones on a grander scale, I'd recommend "Attack and Defense" by Ishida instead.

We are not chess players, are we?

_________________
My name is Gijs, from Utrecht, NL.

When in doubt, play the most aggressive move

It won't do you any harm to look at a comprehensive joseki book like the new one by Takao or the old Ishida books but simply memorizing sequences of moves is not a good thing to do. The proper way to study joseki is to learn why each move of both sides is played. In actual games people frequently deviate from joseki. If you don't understand the reasons behind the joseki moves you will have a hard time dealing with the situation. Sometimes if a non-joseki move is made by your opponent and you don't respond correctly your opponent's bad move may become really good. Also in joseki dictionaries the emphasis is only on the corner, the rest of the board isn't really taken into account. Depending on the situation on the board, a "joseki" move in a corner may be a bad move and a "non-joseki" move may be a good one. The whole-board situation has an effect on the choice of joseki, too. To get a feel for this sort of thing I strongly recommend Yilun Yang's two volume set Whole Board Thinking in Joseki. For general opening theory Otake's Opening Theory Made Easy or Ishigure's In the Beginning are both good. Yang's Fundamental Principles of Go has some good stuff about evaluating moves in the opening. As always, before you get too involved with the latest "fads" in joseki and openings it is important to understand the fundamentals thoroughly.

After all that, you can learn a lot about several aspects of go from studying joseki, such as shape, tesuji, and life-and-death, and choice of joseki involves whole-board strategic issues. It's not fatal to memorize joseki without understanding what's behind every move, but then you have to pay attention to how things work out when you play the moves you memorized. Many strong players don't memorize joseki but instead, when things go badly in a game, they look up the joseki situation for study to see what went wrong.

Thanks for wise input from the both of you! Made me rethink a little bit I've actually read Opening Theory Made Easy and Attack and Defense (even though it may be a good time to reread them). The Whole Board Thinking in Joseki volumes sounds really interesting, I will definitely check them out.



No, we are not

I can recommend The World's New Joseki, (see http://senseis.xmp.net/?TheWorldsNewJoseki ), a three volume set by Rui Naiwei and Jiang Jujo. I have the Japanese edition, but I expect that it has been translated into Chinese and Korean. If so, the Chinese set may be cheaper.

One very attractive feature is that they discuss the joseki in the context of the whole board. This set is not encyclopedic, but they treat each joseki in depth. This depth of analysis over the whole board makes this set quite valuable, IMO.

Years ago, Ishida Yoshio said that there are no 4-4 joseki. Rui and Jiang expand upon that point. Most of the 4-4 joseki in books are left-overs from the days when the 4-4 was confined to handicap games. (Even pros took handicaps from other pros.) As such, their relevance to even games is questionable. But now that the 4-4 is frequently played in even games between pros, new joseki have arisen with sharper play. Such new joseki are covered in this set.

Whatever language you get the set in, you do need to learn enough to read the diagram captions. It helps to read the whole text, of course, but the main value comes from learning the most important words.

Here is a diagram from each volume which introduces a joseki variation that they explore in depth.

Vol. 1:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bm5
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . 4 . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . 5 . . 1 . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Vol. 2:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bm13
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X O O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O O . . 2 . . , . . . . O , X . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

is a new move.

Vol. 3:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bm11
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . X . . . . . , . O . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . X 2 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

This whole joseki is rather new.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Bill, Is there a misprint in your first diagram? Apart from the fact that we have 700 games with that joseki, they go back to Dosaku who played it a few times, and I'd expect you of all people to be familiar with Dosaku's games.

The second diagram is newish - we have 2000 at the earliest - but the "new" move third one goes back to 1930 and was common in the 1980s.

I stand corrected. Thanks.

As for the first diagram, I was aware that it had appeared before, but not aware of the extent to which it had been played. I am editing out the statement of its newness. (There is nothing new under the sun, especially in go. Even my brainstorm, the Manchurian { http://senseis.xmp.net/?ManchurianFuseki } shows up in ancient games.) And I suppose that I am conservative as far as joseki goes. It takes time for new plays and variations to prove themselves enough to make it to joseki status. IMO, the '80s is rather new for joseki.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.