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Fujisawa Tesuji Dictionary
Keywords: Tesuji, Books & Publications
Neither a dictionary nor limited to tesuji[1], this is the current standard work collecting and categorizing moves by function, not form. JF Note that this cuts right across the grain of normal tesuji books which use categories like hane, cut, atekomi. If you study a game and come to a point where you think that, say, a way of strengthening a base is called for, the Fujisawa book gives a long list of splendid examples. It's a source book of ideas rather than a problem book. This strikes me as the most rational way to study and is maybe why the book is so highly regarded. Table of ContentsVolume I: Middle Game
PART 1: Attacking Tesujis, 13-266.
PART 2: Defensive Tesujis, 267-506.
Volume II: Beginning and end game
PART 1: Opening, 15-116.
PART 2: Attack and kill (capturing races), 117-186.
PART 3: Life and death, 187-408. Tristan Jones I received my copy from Kiseido today. I have "borrowed" and adapted John Fairbairn's material from this page (I hope you don't mind) and have added page numbers for the benefit of other English-speakers using this book. I have also created a FujisawaTesujiDictionaryDiscussion page for fellow deshis to discuss this fascinating book. I will do Volume 2 later! May I suggest that you copy the English translations of these headings into your own copies? I have done so - hopefully I shall pick up some more kanji through using this dictionary. Alternatively, you might want to copy and paste this table of contents into MS Word (or similar), then print it out and paste it, literally, into the opening of your dictionary (which you will find at the back as Japanese books are often printed "back to front"). John F. Keenness should be rewarded, so here are a few pointers for those who hope to grope their way through the book while learning Japanese. 1. The format for each tesuji is typically a couple of pages of description/discussion about that tesuji. Not without value, but if you are at the stronger end of the spectrum and you recognise the type of tesuji, you can probably skip this, but a bit of effort on the first section would not go amiss. 2. Then, within each section, all the entries are simply in alphabetical (aiueo/akasatana) order, though this obviously can't apply to the Chinese version. There is no priority ordering. 3. Within each alphabetical entry, there is an introduction to go with the first "source" diagram. Sometimes this can be very useful. If long, assume it's worth the effort of reading it. You will often see a reference here to a source for the problem - most often Katsugo Shinpyo?, occasionally Gokyo Shumyo. After this introduction, there will normally be three diagrams. There is no "correct" solution, but rather an appropriate one. This is usually headed in the style "Black 1 {is the} tesuji" or "White 1, 3 {are the} tesuji". The other diagrams very often represent acceptable play that is either not quite so efficient as the preferred option, or that is appropriate to a different strategy. 4. If you can read only the headings for each of these diagrams, you will probably get enough to get by. There's a lot of dross of the "if Black plays 2, White plays 3" variety. However, if there are letters marked on the board you should pay attention, because these are often discussed in the text in a fairly high level way. Note that these letters are in the other alphabetical order (i ro ha ni ho he to chi ri nu ru wo wa ka yo ta re so tsu ne na ra mu - you won't need more than that unless you read early 20th c. books). 5. Every now and then a whole-board position from a game is given. I can't say I've ever spotted a good reason for this other than as a welcome break from the otherwise monotonous form. 6. A typical use of the book is to play over a game and when you come to a point where a definable strategy or tactic is needed (one of those in the chapter headings, of course), you look through all the tesujis offered and see how they can apply to the game. You will find a very high hit rate (and sometimes where you find no hits you may realise that you've actually picked the wrong strategy!). 7. It follows from this kind of use that it is advantageous to be familiar with the alphabetical names used (on the top right of most pages). By and large these are standard and familiar: tsuke, kiri, nozoki, but at times you will need to expand your vocabulary a bit to things like atemakuri, haikomi, kirikomi, which (I suspect) you will not find on-line, so a query to SL may have to be raised. You should always be alert to the need to use terms in their Japanese sense, not the English one, so that, for example, you will see hane, hanekomi, hanedashi used instead of English hane. 8. If you are new to Japanese, note that the book uses the plain forms of verbs, not the desu/-masu forms most beginners' books for learning Japanese use, i.e. dearu/da not desu, nai not arimasen, dekiru not dekimasu. Tristan Thanks very much John for those notes. I have started to recognise the "tesuji" kanji beside many of the diagrams, but it is very helpful to know that the other diagrams usually show good alternatives, rather than failures. I have been casually learning Japanese for a while: I suspect that using materials like this, for which I need to be persistent to get the information that I want, will do a lot of good for my Japanese as a by-product. On a different note: recently I have been coming to grips with various Japanese go books and resources, including this tesuji dictionary. It is quite sobering to realise that there is a lot of material there which has yet to appear in anything more than an introductory form in Western go literature. This tesuji dictionary, for instance, is a lot denser and comprehensive than both Davies's book on tesuji and Van Zeijst's and Bozulich's Making Good Shape? put together. Charles You're not wrong there, Tristan. DougRidgway My edits make some of the next comment look outdated. John F. This bit on Vol. 2 is not by me (is it?) and looks a bit confusing. The block marked 2.2 is the subdivision of the capturing races (semeai) part. The other three parts of course have subdivisions, and in the case of L&D and yose they are far richer than the other two sections. You'll get more out of this volume of the work if you realise two things: (1) Tesuji is used in the Japanese not the English sense, hence opening tesuji (fuseki no tesuji) is not about clever moves. In fact one section (kaiten no tesuji - tesujis for development) is all about haengma - there's a longish part that would not be out of place in any Korean work on the subject; (2) Yose likewise is used in its Japanese sense, not the English one, and so is not about the endgame but about the drawing together of territories, which can happen at any time on the game (the earliest use of the term yose in a pro game I have noted is move 68, when it was a strategical decision to turn the game into a yose shoubu). Many of the yose tesujis in this book are likewise relevant to the early part of the game. All four of the above parts treat of the opening (joban; i.e. early stages) and endgame (shuuban?; i.e. final stages). The reference to "(something about) ko" just says "ko tesujis". I'm willing to swap my very detailed notes on a big chunk of Vol. 1 with anyone who (a) can show he has bought the original, and (b) can offer things like old Oriental go magazines in return. DougRidgway Nope John, it's not by you. Hopefully I've cleared things up a bit. Sorry about the confusion. DougRidgway The character I couldn't read before is U+722D 爭 zheng1 = "fight", so I changed 2.2.d to read "Ko fights". Also, I removed the word "tesuji" from the chapter titles, following John's suggestion that the English word is misleading. I'd already dropped it from the subheadings, every single one of which also ends in "de shou3 jin2" = "of tesuji". More descriptions by JohnF, from rec.games.go:
Charles Matthews refers to it as "the current standard work". Currently (early 2003) available in Japanese (published by the Nihon Kiin) from Kiseido and Chinese (printed in Taipei) from Yutopian. The pagination is (probably) the same in the Japanese and Chinese editions. DiscussionFhayashi: So, who has the English translation rights? BobMcGuigan: Just for reference, this is a huge book, over 1100 pages long. And it costs $380 for the Japanese version from Kiseido. I'll bet an English version would be even more expensive, since the publisher would probably sell fewer copies. It's published by the Nihon Ki-in, who probably hold the translation rights. DougRidgway I think you're referring to the Tesuji Encyclopedia, a different book. This is the dictionary, two volumes, 37 USD per volume for Japanese. Bob: Oops! You're right, my mistake. However, the two volume dictionary is also published by the Nihon Ki-in and they would hold the translation rights. Fhayashi: Just out of curiosity, anyone know how much such translation rights cost, and the prospect of being able to publish such a translation and NOT lose money? Charles I do have some idea of the Nihon Ki-in's terms: which are a percentage of sales. Snag is, the custom in Japan (and Korea seems to be the same) is that the whole sum on the rights is due at publication. Tristan: Compare the Segoe and Go Seigen Tesuji Dictionary SegoeTesujiDictionary. [1] In its English sense. This is a copy of the living page "Fujisawa Tesuji Dictionary" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |