Method of Teaching: principles, classification, examples
Read when EGF: 18k - 3d
Subjective Rank Improvement: ++
Subjective Topic Coverage: +
Subjective Aims' Achievement: ++
Historical Context
Fundamentals played the major role in the author's rank improvement: A
quick increment from 14 to 10 kyu relied mostly on the insight that it
is possible to learn from one's mistakes. His first read book, Lessons
in the Fundamentals, and later the series Dictionary of Basic Joseki
each was responsible for another two ranks. At 3 dan, the author
stopped for 16 months because he had to understand fundamentals in
their details while no book would explain them. Lessons in the
Fundamentals mentions some basic topics of fundamentals that one should
study but does not go into details. Dictionary of Basic Joseki hides
information about fundamentals in the diagrams and in between the lines
and the author had extracted every aspect conveyed in these books
anyway. So to become 4 and 5 dan, he discovered more and more details
of fundamentals by himself. This knowledge continues where those other
books stop and is conveyed in Joseki / Volume 1: Fundamentals or will
be explained in the later volumes.
Remarkable Top Achievements
Joseki / Fundamentals is the Go book with the
most detailed structure,
most complete explanation of the fundamentals of moves and
stones,
most complete classification of and principles for corner
enclosures, approach moves and pincers,
first description of principles for playing in empty
corners during the middle game,
first to classify move types exhaustively for josekis,
by far most complete classification of move types,
first to introduce the very useful terms direct versus
indirect
connection, direct versus indirect capture, connecting and cutting
block, empty net, light remainder, proto-group etc.
first to classify meanings of stones,
most detailed study of development directions,
most useful definitions of move types and in particular of
thick shape move types,
best principles for extensions,
greatest density of explicit Go theory per page on average,
first Go theory book with a "+" quality for Topic Coverage
in the author's ISBN Rating List.
(Explanation: Besides Joseki Vol.1 and the planned Vol. 2+3, only a few
additional books might suffice to get a 9p's understanding of josekis,
except for his still greater tactical reading ability: capturing races
in josekis, ko theory, a few joseki dictionaries and a report on recent
tactical joseki innovations.)
Characterisation
The book contains three types of diagrams: whole board diagrams (mostly
games), variation diagrams with move-sequences and diagrams with marks
only (denoting currently discussed move types, meanings of stones or
development directions). Although the overall distribution of these
diagram types is reasonably balanced, 19x19 diagrams occur mostly only
in the chapters The Start of the Opening, Empty Corners during the
Middle Game, First Move in the Center, Corner Enclosures, Approach Move
to a Corner Stone and Pincer. Since the book is already rather long,
the author has refrained from including games also in the other
chapters, which concentrate on local behaviour. The games were either
played by professional players or involve the author. They are
carefully selected for illustrating a chapter's topic well. While of
course the reader will see also some spectacular games, most
demonstrate ordinary strategies and playing styles. Most diagrams carry
captions with often useful, quick hints or additional information.
There is a fair balance between general text, which also includes many
principles and definitions of terms, diagram comments and the diagrams.
Chapters tend to start with general text and end with examples and
their comments. Due to the principles, definitions and their
explanations, the reader is guided towards generalized knowledge, which
he is supposed to learn applying in all his games. Rather than having
to reinvent all the theory by himself from examples, the reader is
already given the readily applicable result of the author's earlier
research in Go theory.
The claimed range of the readers' playing strengths from 18 kyu to 3
dan is surprisingly (or shall we say: suspiciously) broad. How is that
possible? The author wrote the book with a readership from 13 kyu to 3
dan in mind but several double digit kyu test readers have insisted
that the book would be suitable for 18 kyus, too. Players between 1 and
3 dan might fall into two categories: either they have already acquired
a very solid understanding of fundamentals or they have not. In the
latter case, the book can still be very valuable. Other dan players
might consider purchase only for specific reasons like not knowing good
handling of empty corners in the middle game yet or appreciating the
reference to the very detailed classification of types and meanings.
Since the book contains much useful new information for the kyu player,
who might possibly not want to buy the book? Maybe somebody without
enough energy to eat through the huge amount of generalizing contents
or somebody not sharing the author's opinion on the great importance of
the fundamentals and their details.
The Chapters
After two introductory chapters including a discussion of what a joseki
is, each standard first move in a corner (from the 3-3 to the 5-5) is
characterized in a manner similar to Direction of Play or In the
Beginning. This basic information will be useful mostly for beginners.
Nevertheless, it has not been omitted because the author wants the
series of books on josekis to be a complete coverage of the underlying
Go theory. The later chapter Development Directions is also very easy
but contains a few hints interesting also for stronger players (like
the reasons for moving out). Similarly, the chapter on Symmetries may
look trivial but the author recalls winning a game as a 1 kyu because
his opponent did not know the concept of playing elsewhere immediately
after an approach move. From an understanding that the first two corner
stones can be played in either move order, this becomes a strategic
consequence. It is surprising just how great the effect of a firm
understanding of the fundamentals is!
How many players, even dans, do not dare to play the asymmetrical 3-5
or 4-5? In The Start of the Opening they should learn to abandon their
fear. Still about half of the high dan amateurs do not have a profound
idea how to handle irregular opening moves. Maybe they should read the
relevant chapter Empty Corners during the Middle Game? The short
chapter First Move in the Center addresses another topic rarely
mentioned in the Go literature.
Principles and examples discuss when to choose which kind of corner
enclosure (open vs. closed corner, open vs. closed side, narrow vs.
wide enclosure), the nature of every type of approach move (from the
ordinary types to ko threat and ladder breaker) and which kind of
pincer to choose (from "near and low" via "far" to "very far and
high"). Subchapters about "center block", not playing a pincer,
"returning the pincer" and pincers during the middle game complete the
topic.
With its 78 pages, the chapter Move Types constitutes the book's core.
The following chapter Meanings of a Stone is shorter but also part of
the conceptual key. Why are types and meanings of stones and moves so
important? They allow us to use a language of well selected terms and
context knowledge in the form and principles and standard behaviour of
every known term to guide our reasoning and planning through the
endless variety of the game's tactical depth. Reasoning and planning do
not work well without a good language. Therefore the book dispenses
with the unstructured heap of Go terms imported from foreign languages,
keeps only the essential terms, suggests more meaningful names for some
of them (like "thick extension" instead of "nobi") and adds the useful
and necessary, previously missing terms (like the collective term
"thick cut protection"). As can be seen, the names of terms are chosen
to convey their meaning already directly from the name's words.
Furthermore there is a consistency of terminology wherever this is
possible: "Connection" can be the type of a move, the meaning of a
stone, the behaviour of a group's stones and a strategic concept. Hence
planning becomes straightforward: When the strategic aim is to create
connection, then one should play a move that is of that move type, i.e.
is a "connection". We should not confuse ourselves by using many
different names because of varying shapes but we should just use the
one term "connection". The book encourages the reader to simplify his
thinking by using terms that express exactly the relevant information.
The author wants more than to teach the reader well - he wants to
reform our vocabulary to make it more efficient, better structured,
functionally complete, and more useful in practice. On the top level,
the book lists these move types 1) Connection, Cut, Capture, Eyespace
and Territory, Sacrifice (they have an identical name of a strategic
concept), 2) Extension, Checking Extension, Pressing, Light and Thin
Shapes, Attachment (they are other well known general types of moves,
3) Thick Extension, Thick Block, Thick Connection, Thick Cut
Protection, Thick Turn, Thick Capture (they are types of moves creating
thick shape) and 4) Creating Possibilities, Eliminating Possibilities
(they are related to possibilities, of which the strategic concept
"aji" is a special case). All these are fundamentals of the game and
the list of top level terms is short and clear enough for our regular
usage. Hence the reader is given an easy access to the details of those
fundamentals, which are explained in the subchapters. Fundamentals
should not be sold as a mystery of study that turned Kageyama (the
author of Lessons in the Fundamentals) from an amateur into a
professional but fundamentals should be presented with a clear
structure and together with all the details (subtypes and principles
applicable to them) written down. Exactly this is done by the book,
which uses the same approach in the Meanings of a Stone chapter. There
the top level of the structure is even shorter: Construction,
Destruction, Combined Construction and Destruction, Creating
Possibilities, Eliminating Possibilities. What does all this have to
with josekis? They are created by moves and consist of stones quite
like formations during the middle game or in the middle of the board.
The move types and meanings occurring in josekis occur everywhere else,
too! Therefore the study of types and meanings is much more than a key
to an understanding of the basics of josekis - it is also a study of
the fundamentals of the game per se! Not by chance some professionals
say that they consider their study of josekis a very good means for
their improvement. The book discusses almost only josekis or other
corner patterns in the example diagrams but the reader should take a
broader approach and expect to deepen his overall understanding of the
game as well. The author presents the book's contents in a manner that
gives the reader multiple chances to improve if only he reads with a
broadly open mind of discovering many new things even for the seemingly
trivial aspects like connection and cut.
The book is well worth buying even for its appendix alone: On just a
few pages each, the central aspects of evaluation of territory, local
move selection, the gap between wall and extension etc. are explained
better than could be found elsewhere easily.
35 exercises and a detailed index complete the book.
What the Book is Not
Volume 1 does not discuss what will be in Volumes 2 and 3:
classification of sequences, groups and josekis, strategic concepts and
strategic decision making, and application of the theory to specific
josekis to be analysed in detail. Needless to say, the book is also
everything else than a joseki dictionary. Rather it can be used as a
tool for a better understanding of the dictionaries and their countless
moves in endless amounts of variations. The book or its planned later
volumes are also not a broad study of tactically complex josekis with
semeais or a requirement for deep reading. In the author's opinion such
topics deserve books of their own that need not specialize in josekis.
Finally the series of books will not be a survey on recent innovations
of yet deeper and deeper tactical analysis of fashionable josekis.
* = These are the endconsumer prices in EUR according to UStG
§19 (small business exempted from VAT).
