A Zen Way to Joseki

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AvatarDJFlux: I would like to share with you my personal approach to Joseki. Much of what you'll find below has already been said in other pages, while some related concepts can also be found in another blurb of mine, but, as there seems to be no end to people asking for the ultimate Joseki dictionary, I'll happily stress some concepts.

Once upon a time, a great Zen Master was asked to tell his experiences on the path to enlightenment. He said:
"When I was young and I didn't know what Zen was, the mountains were mountains, rivers were rivers and clouds clouds. Then I started to practice Zen, and after some time of studying the mountains weren't mountains any more, rivers were not rivers, and the clouds were not clouds."
"Now that I am enlightened mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers and clouds clouds."

So it goes with Joseki. When you start to play Go you have no idea of what a Joseki is. You play freely in the corners. Not knowing anything, you play moves that you like, relying on the little you know, on your still limited ability to read ahead, on what you want to do and how to reach your goal. Very often you get crushed.

Disappointed, you start studying, and discover that there are set corner sequences called Joseki which are said to give equal result. Set sequences??!? If they are set they can be studied and memorised!!! Such an approach appeals very much to the rational western mind: categorise, memorise and fish the right one out when you need a specific something.
So you go and seek the ultimate Joseki repository, hoping to find a way to have a perfect joseki for all seasons.

Pity that:

  • Joseki are not set. They are a living organism, they change, they adapt, they are improved, they become obsolete. A pro finds a new move that gives an advantage: no joseki anymore. Another pro finds a countermeasure: new Joseki!
  • Very often a certain move is not considered Joseki just because it entails a loss of, say, two points. That's enormous for pro standards, but should we, weak amateurs, be bothered, when a few moves later we are likely to play a strategic mistake (for instance a wrong direction of play) that could costs us some thirty points? [2]
  • Your opponent won't play as you expect him. Amateurs more often than not deviate from the so-called set sequence. Pros do the same but for a very different reason, see above, and with very different results. As we have read somewhere that a deviation from Joseki should be punished, we look for a way to kill our opponent's groups. Of course in oh so many instances we fail to do that and we get frustrated. So frustrated that we could lose the game! To punish a deviating move we should first have thoroughly understood the real meaning of each and every move in the sequence (see 3-3 point invasion query 5), and then maybe we do not realise that the possible punishment is just the infliction of a two-point loss. See above.

So hopefully after some struggle you will understand that Joseki are not that important after all, at least until you reach, say, 3 dan amateur (see below).
If you think that Go is about fighting power and tactical combat, think twice, or else move to chess (no offence intended, chess is a thoroughly enjoyable intellectual game). Of course fighting power is important, and what happens in internet Go and in the fashionable styles prevailing in the international pro arena stand there to demonstrate it, but I happen to believe that Go is more than mere tactics and more than an intellectual game.

In the end you may realise that we should play having in mind a strategic goal and that we should play freely in the corners to reach that goal, relying on our ability to read ahead. I believe that we should play moves that we like, a style we enjoy. I also believe that we shouldn't mind losing a lot, provided we learn something. The circle has been closed, but we are more aware.

If you'd like to hear some advice from a 50-year old player, the weakest of the 2k, do the following:

  • Study the strategic concepts, the Direction Of Play, Positional Judgement, how to use Thickness, How to Set the Pace in a Game? (WMBT? Pace?[1] DJ: Not really: I had something different in mind: I'll write something in the Pace page). In this respect, I fully support Charles when he says that Fuseki and Side Patterns are more interesting. Go is about strategy!!!
  • Play along pro games.
  • Study Tesuji and Life And Death to improve your reading ability.
  • Deviate from Joseki as much as possible, but do that with awareness: try to reach your strategic goal regardless, or to stop your opponent from reaching his/her goal. Read ahead!
  • Play simple joseki with weaker players and difficult ones with stronger players. Enjoy the latter, such as the Nadare, Taisha, Muramasa's Magic Sword, but not for the sake of mastering variations: do that for the sake of entering deep, unknown and dark waters and learn to swim better and better.
  • Meanwhile, study the Endgame: it is an invaluable source of Tesuji, and it teaches you the patience of counting...

If you do that proficiently, you may find yourself a 3 dan. Only then is it about time to start a serious study of joseki: now you may have the needed tools to understand what it is that pros call Joseki.
Again, not to memorise a thousand variations, but to be able to adapt your corner play to your strategic plan!


DJ: Before someone fields the obvious objection, yes, yes, I am not a 3 dan...
What to do, I do not practice what I preach, I am just too lazy... :-)


iopq: I'm just an 18k on KGS, but I've had a lot of games where I win by, say, 1.5 points. Do I really want to lose those two points by deviating from joseki?

DJ: Dear iopq, your wins of 1.5 points are most probably the result of the average of a large number of 20-points mistakes made both by you and by your opponent. I do not intend to offend you, as just the same applies to my (2k) wins or losses by 1.5 points...

I think that not even a 4D (amateur) can maintain a 1.5 point balance from start to end in a game - something that the average pro can sometimes do ;-)
Not always though, otherwise there would not be resignations...

kokiri - yes, i say - 2 points dropped in the opening is going to be far outweighted by later mistakes unless you are very strong indeed. anyway, better to play what looks good, possibly make a mistake and learn from it, than slavishly follow something you've learnt. Put it this way, what is more valuable, the 5 points you avoid losing in the current game, or the extra points you get from every game in the future as a result of what you have learnt?

revo: iopq, the question is, what do you do if your opponent deviates from your joseki-book? do you know, why he actually had to play the way you expected, and do you know how you can make him lose his two points for not doing so? Do you even know how to continue after this "wrong" move without losing points yourself? Most times I don't and I have to read the real situation and the whole board to decide. That's why I threw away my joseki books after I got used to some four or five basic variations.

Malweth: My response is, 2 points can certainly make a difference in any game, but the move that gives extra "points" is often harder to defend. In many cases it IS defensable, but the path is more difficult (especially for an 18-kyu).

iopq: I easily punish my opponents for deviating from joseki. I just go to SL during the game and find the refutation. Like in one game I did a 3-3 point invasion and my opponent did a hane on the wrong side... he resigned a dozen moves later. I actually read how to respond to the hane on the wrong side prior to the game. And the fact that we make twenty point mistakes doesn't mean that succeeding in getting that extra influence or that extra aji won't help you win one of those close games. When my opponents play moves that are so out of the blue they are not even mentioned in SL, I usually have an idea on how to get some extra territory or influence. Although sometimes my ideas backfire :) In any case, by studying joseki I prevent making REALLY dumb moves as a response to my opponent's joseki moves.

DJ: Are you saying that you secretely look in SL while playing on line??!? What a bad guy... ;-)
What if your opponent has a Pro at her side? Don't you know that here at SL we'are amateurs only??!?

Jokes apart, my personal belief is that looking in Joseki dictionaries to find the best move won't improve your game (at least at your level): it almost amount to learn joseki by heart - again, sooner or later you'll face a move not mentioned in the books (or in SL, for that matter), and you'll be on your own.
Wouldn't you think that studying Tesuji, LifeAnd Death, Direction Of Play would give you better tools to cope with the unexpected? :-)

BTW, should we move all this to the discussion page?

iopq: How can I improve by "studying" life and death? I do LIFE AND DEATH PROBLEMS, but I don't "study" it. Plus, my losses due to borked openings making me die in the corner went down by 100% percent. I'd rather memorize a whole joseki sequence than lose a corner again.

Mef: There is a subtle difference between studying tsumego and just doing problems. Studying involves looking at the initial position and reading out the solution fully. Once you are certain you've found the answer, and all possible lines work, then you check the answer to verify. If you still got it wrong, then check why you got it wrong. This will help you learn all sorts of techniques that can be applied in your own games for making and destroying eyes. In general, the main idea of studying tsumego is to improve your reading ability in general, and also to aid in things such as identifying where the vital point is. The problem with memorizing a joseki is that they can only help you should 2 conditions be met, 1: Your opponent must know the sequence as well, and 2: They must be willing to play it. Memorizing a sequence doesn't help you if your opponent deviates at move 5, and then you are just as lost as you were originally. By working on your reading ability in general though, that is something the will aid you in any given situation, no matter how your opponent plays.

iopq: I just post the variation on SL and next game I will know how to refute it or why it's bad. When I do tsumego I always try to read it out completely. But you can't really study something that improves your read unless you memorize tesuji. I agree that my opponent has to "agree" to play a joseki, but if I deviate FIRST I have a chance of playing a sub-optimal move that might make me lose the game. I don't mind if my opponent plays out of joseki because I know that I have a continuation available where I come out ahead. Plus, now I concentrate more on pro games instead of just clicking next move - I watch which joseki and non-joseki sequences they play and how that affects the entire board and I look them up on SL.

Imagist: I have a few quibbles to present to this approach. Namely, that your points are mostly self-defeating.

  • Yes, joseki are always changing. But this isn't a reason to stop learning joseki; rather it is a reason to learn the new variations, and, more importantly, learn from the new variations.
  • You correctly note that the difference in points can be minor between a joseki and a non-joseki move. That said, if one understands where the points can be gained, why not gain them? Furthermore, the difference in points is not always minor: take, for example, the 'severe hane' at 44PointOneSpaceLowPincerInvasionInterception#r3. I, for one have made 30+ point mistakes in the avalanche joseki more than once.
  • Some weak players who misunderstand the nature of the game do try to kill their opponent's groups as soon as their opponent deviates from joseki. This does not show that learning joseki directly is bad, it just shows that the players who do this are weak. Knowing joseki gives one a clue when your opponent deviates that you should be able to punish your opponent. I usually take such opportunities to gain a better understanding of the joseki by taking my time to find a way to punish the mistake. Sometimes I don't come up with anything that seems like a punishment to me. Sometimes I come up with a punishment that is worth only a few points, when the correct punishment would utterly destroy my opponent's position. Other times, I have studied the joseki thoroughly enough that I know the punishment beforehand and can dispense justice. In all of these cases, studying joseki helps me. What you are describing is Kyu Disease, not the evil of joseki study.

Let me make this amply clear: I find nothing wrong with studying joseki the zen way. But I find that I gain more from studying joseki my way, that is by learning joseki with all the details; understanding the purpose of each move (and thereby how to punish deviations). I usually pick a certain very specific joseki and learn one variation in-depth, focusing on each move, then learning as many variations as possible in the same way. If I had waited until 3dan to do this as you recommend, I would not be 4kyu (that is to say, I would be a good 4-5 stones weaker).

Tamsin: There's a lot of good stuff in this article, but I disagree with it for the following reason: just about every strong player, amateur or pro, that I've ever met or read has had one thing in common: an enormous amount of knowledge about the game. They have clearly studied the joseki, not only corner openings but middlegame patterns too, until they know them cold. There is so much to learn from the joseki, so why turn your face away from them? Think for yourself by all means, but if you can acquire valuable knowledge, then do so!

When I review a game with Alexandre Dinerchtein, my teacher, he always knows the appropriate joseki for the occasion. I asked him about this, and it turns out that he spent considerable time with a certain work by Ishida in his youth.


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This is a copy of the living page "A Zen Way to Joseki" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2009 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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