Learning joseki loses two stones strength

  Difficulty: Beginner   Keywords: Opening, Joseki, Proverb

Learning Joseki Loses Two Stones Strength - Studying Joseki gains four stones strength.

This often cited proverb is intended to visualise how learning Joseki by 'rote' is useless or even worse. The aim is not to be able to replay a sequence, but to understand what each move does and how this particular sequence affects the whole board.

Hence, studying Joseki does help you improve, because it increases your understanding of the game. However, see joseki/discussion for a lively debate on this.

dnerra: I really like the korean proverb that I just learned: "Learn your jungsuk, but then forget it!"

Example

Fujisawa Hideyuki shows an example of where blindly following joseki is not good.

[Diagram]

Joseki but kikasare

White 1 - White 7 is joseki. However, White 7 is kikasare. It is too passive. White should make use of its strength on the left and play the boshi at a, as in the following diagram.

[Diagram]

Whole board thinking

White 1 is an example of leaning.


[Diagram]

Joseki but kikasare

Incidentally, White's move 5 in the above diagram may be a mistake in that it removes a possible 3-3 invasion in Black's upper right corner. So this may be best for White.


Further reading

External links


This is a copy of the living page "Learning joseki loses two stones strength" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2005 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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