Fujisawa Tesuji Dictionary

    Keywords: Tesuji, Books & Publications

Chinese: 手筋辞典
Japanese: 基本手筋事典 (Kihon Tesuji Jiten)
Korean:

The Fujisawa Shuko Tesuji Dictionary is neither a dictionary nor limited to tesuji, rather this is the current standard work collecting and categorizing moves by function, not form. The book is divided into sections based upon the goal to be achieved: tesuji for separating, tesuji for pressing down, etc. (see the table of contents below.) At the start of each section are a few paragraphs explaining the goal and its role in a game. The text is followed by a list of methods, tesuji, that may be used to achieve that goal. For separating, the list includes one space jump descent, solid descent, sideways bump and fifteen others, each with its own theme diagram and single paragraph text description. Following the listing of methods in each section, are a selection of problems, some of which are taken from classic problem collections: Katsugo Shinpyo, Gokyo Shumyo, Guanzi Pu, Gokei Genmyou, and even Igo Hatsuyoron.

The excellent english translation by Slate and Shell is marred by two faults:

  1. One single page is dedicated to each problem, unfortunately, the problem diagram and the solution diagrams appear on the same page, rather than on the overleaf. A piece of thick paper is required to hide the answers when doing the problems.
  2. The binding is tight and the paper rather stiff, making it difficult to hold the book open without splitting the spine.

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.

minismurf I got the books a week ago, and highly recommend them. I discovered early that I recognize a lot of the problems. Explanation: The computer program "Tesuji made easy" has some sections that are almost direct copied of the 2 books. I think this is true for the whole program, but I am not sure yet.

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Table of Contents

Volume I: Middle Game (中盘)

PART 1: Attacking Tesujis, 13-266.(攻击的手筋)

  • Separating Tesujis, 14-35.
  • Pressurising Tesujis, 36-57.
  • Sealing-in Tesujis, 58-83.
  • Shape-destroying Tesujis, 84-110.
  • Probing Tesujis, 111-132.
  • Tesujis for Creating Heavy Groups, 133-50.
  • Tesujis for Creating Weaknesses, 151-69.
  • Tesujis that Work in Two Directions, 170-93.
  • Base-destroying Tesujis, 194-219.
  • Capturing Tesujis, 220-43.
  • Ko-threatening Tesujis. 244-66.

PART 2: Defensive Tesujis, 267-506 (防守的手筋)

  • Connecting Tesujis, 268-84.
  • Tesujis for Advancing to the Centre, 285-307.
  • Running-out Tesujis, 308-27.
  • Shape-making Tesujis, 328-55.
  • Sente-taking Tesujis, 356-76.
  • Sabaki-making Tesujis, 377-98.
  • Countercutting Tesujis, 399-418.
  • Tesujis for Giving Respite to Two Weak Groups, 419-35.
  • Base-strengthening Tesujis, 436-55.
  • Bridging-under Tesujis, 456-82.
  • Tesujis for Resisting with Ko, 483-524.

Volume II: Beginning and end game (序盘与终盘)

PART 1: Opening, 15-116.(布局的手筋)

  • Development, 16-36.
  • Playing at close quarters, 37-56.
  • Expanding a moyo, 57-71.
  • Erasing, 72-87.
  • Surrounding territory, 88-101.
  • Invading, 102-116.

PART 2: Capturing races, 117-186.(攻杀的手筋)

  • Gaining liberties, 118-135.
  • Reducing enemy liberties, 136-152.
  • Meari Menashi, 153-166.
  • Ko fights, 167-186.

PART 3: Life and death, 187-408.(死活的手筋)

  • Preserving eye-shape, 188-209.
  • Expanding eye-space, 210-231.
  • Capturing stones to ensure life, 254-275.
  • Using ko fights to live, 276-298.
  • Destroying eye-shape, 298-319.
  • Constricting the opponent's eye-space, 320-341.
  • Shortage of liberties, 342-363.
  • Using sacrifice stones to kill, 364-386.
  • Using ko fights to kill, 387-408.

PART 4: Endgame, 409-505.(官子的手筋)

  • Encroachments (i.e. nibbling at the edges; not invasions), 410-429.
  • Stopping encroachments, 430-444.
  • Making gains by threatening to kill, 445-459.
  • Semedori, 460-471.
  • Amputating limbs, 472-482.
  • Double-action forcing moves, 483-494.
  • Gaining sente, 495-505.

Fin: Is anyone out there able to provide translations of the remainder of the table of contents for Volume 2?

DougRidgway: I stuck in what my notes show so far. Consider it all fairly questionable, but some parts are more correct than others.

Fin: Thanks Doug. I've added some more guesses. I want to stress that my attempts don't even approach being translations -- they're based on recognizing a couple of kanji and taking a rough stab at what the diagram and pages in the section are showing.

John F. The contents of Part 1 of Volume 2 are special in that they are discussed in much greater detail in text terms than the rest of the contents. In fact, this is probably as good an exposition of go theory as you'll ever see in a Japanese book (and despite what Robert Jasiek thinks, they can do it). Section 1 of this part can be rendered "development" (of single stones rather than positions) but it is actually the direct Japanese equivalent of haengma. Generally, in this portion tesuji is used in its meaning of "way to play", not brilliant moves. Section 2 is "tesuji for (i.e. how to play) at close quarters". This is not contact fights, but rather refers to the stage of the opening where lots of stones have already been placed and it is now necessary to play in relatively confined spaces. Again the text here is important (in every sense). Section 3 is how to expand a moyo. Section 4 how to erase, Section 5 how to surround territory (an important concept in Japanese commentaries that has been virtually ignored in English - it refers to sealing off territory directly, not indirectly by attacking, etc; the Japanese is kakou). Section 6 is on how to invade. In all these sections think of tesuji as "how to play", or at least forget any notion of brilliancy.

In Part 2 (Capturing Races) tesuji takes on its western flavour. Section 1 is tesujis for increasing liberties. Section 2 is tesujis for reducing enemy liberties. Section 3 is tesujis for meari menashi situations. Section 4 covers kos in capturing races (the introductory text here is quite valuable, though most of it has filtered through to the west already).

Part 3 is life & death tesujis. Section 1 is techniques (another meaning of tesuji) for preserving eye shape, and Section 2 covers expanding eye space. Section 3 is tesujis for exploiting shortage of liberties. Section 4 is tesujis for living by capturing (a form of damezumari). Section 5 is living by using ko. Section 6 is techniques for destroying eye shape. Section 7 is tesujis for constricting the opponent's eye space. Section 8 relates to tesujis for seeking damezumari. Section 9 is tesujis for killing by means of sacrifice stones (ishi no shita etc; for the rules mavens there's an advanced disussion of torazu sanmoku here). Section 10 is on killing with ko. En passant it's interesting that the thought processes here go eye shape/eye space/damezumari/ko - a useful order to approach problems with.

Part 4 is on the endgame. Section 1 covers encroachments (i.e. nibbling at the edges; not invasions). Section 2 is the opposite: techniques for stopping encroachments. This is another new concept for the English literature (the Japanese is kuitomeru). Section 3 covers techniques of making endgame gains by first making plays threatening the life of the enemy group. Section 4 is semedori. Section 5 tells you how to lop off whole limbs (kuiyaburu?) of enemy groups. Section 6 is double-action forcing moves. Section 7 is techniques for getting sente in endgame plays. If this whole last part interests you, you will do well to seek out the old Chinese classics rather than Japanese works. This is what Guanzi Pu is all about, for example (guanzi means endgame moves), and this work is of course quoted in this part of the book.

I really should get round to reading this book one day!

Fin: Thank you very much John. I've incorporated your comments into the table of contents.


Tamsin 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 /Discussion 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.


Tamsin 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, Tamsin.


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:

[ext] http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=986119161.12449.0.nnrp-13.9e98805d%40news.demon.co.uk&oe=UTF-8

[ext] http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=rsnDHCAM1Xz3Ewq2%40harrowgo.demon.co.uk&oe=UTF-8

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.


Discussion

Fhayashi: So, who has the English translation rights?

  • PatrickB: Slate and Shell does. They're translating it as three volumes, the first of which "Tesuji for Attacking" will be out in September of 2004. I've seen the galley proofs (at the U.S. Go Congress) and its really nice.

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.

Tamsin: Compare the Segoe Kensaku and Go Seigen Tesuji Dictionary SegoeTesujiDictionary.

Fhayashi: Now that I have both, if your Japanese reading ability is not so great, I think you can get more out of the Segoe Tesuji Dictionary than out of the Fujisawa Tesuji Dictionary. The Fujisawa is set up more like a dictionary in that there are sections, diagrams, and explanations, where about half the page is text. A lot of the content is the text. The Segoe book is set up a like a problem and answer book where the text is either a hint on how to start or view the problem, or an explanation in the answer section. The text is about 1/3 of the content, and you don't even need to read the text to get most of the content.

Jion: I am now extremely curious about this book. One thing that caught my attention, however, was that as of Apr. 25, 2004 Yutopian lists BOTH volumes (Chinese version) for $48 USD while Kiseido lists the Japanese version for $40 USD each + shipping. If they are the same, and you can simply learn from the diagrams, it might be a bargain.

On a related note, Yutopian also offers "Encyclopedia of Tesuji - Nihon Kiin", lists the authors as Go Seigen and Segoe Kensaku as $53 USD for all three volumes . . compare that to $120 USD+shipping at Kiseido.

Can anyone confirm that these books are the same? The Fujisawa dict. is listed as "more than 500 pages per book" (which matches up) and the Seigen as "a total of 675 pages." It would be great if someone could take a few minutes to check this. Furthermore, it would be a bit easier for me to translate, since I am Chinese =P

Also, can anyone give a recommended strength range for these books? TIA.

kritz Is this the same dictionary that has been translated and is being sold by Slate and Shell. At least vol I appears to have been translated. Has anyone bought it? The price seems good.

Grauniad: Only the first part of volume 1 (attacking) has been translated so far (early 2005), ISBN 1-9320011-9-0. The complete English translation will consist of 4 volumes in total. The first (English) volume sells for US$25. Can anyone comment on the quality and completeness of the translation so far?

Grauniad: The second part of volume 1 (defending) has also been translated and is now available (June 2005) for US$25 from [ext] Slate and Shell, ISBN 1-9320012-3-9.

Grauniad The first part of volume 2 (opening, capture races, and life and death, part 1) is now available (March 2006) for US$25 from [ext] Slate and Shell, ISBN 1-9320012-5-5.

Grauniad The second part of volume 2 (life and death, part 2, endgame) is now available (July 2007) for US$25 from [ext] Slate and Shell, ISBN 1-9320012-8-X. This completes the English language translation.

Duhii: I'm going through the first English volume at the moment. It's made of win and king, so to say. I think I'd be well up the dan ranks if I understood all the problems in this book.


Anyone have the ISBN numbers for these books? - Fhayashi

BobMcGuigan: They are: 4-8182-0401-3 and 4-8182-0402-1 (for the Fujisawa dictionary)

Malweth: The Chinese version ISBN are 957-561-114-4 and 957-561-115-2 and are available from The publisher: [ext] book 1 and [ext] book 2. I only have one of the two!! I picked up one volume (the Second according to this page) at Page One in Taipei 101 this summer... I went back, but haven't been able to find the mate. Now I can either get the English version, Japanese version, or try and interpret Mercury-publish.com.tw and hope they can ship internationally :D (Or Maybe find the book this fall, but I don't know if I'll be in Taipei or elsewhere in Taiwan)


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