Joseki and Fuseki

Introduction

Joseki are controversial, nonetheless, it seems that the greats (quotes below) feel that joseki are essential to progress in your game of WeiQi. Below I am compiling rudimentary SGFs to help learn joseki and fuseki. Right click on the files, save them to your hard drive and then open them in your favorite SGF editor (I use CGoban !). Please mail me any corrections or your own SGF creations. -- Shay (see member's page)



Proverbs


Quotes of the Greats


Yulun Yang (7 Dan) ---- Fundamental Principles of Go

Because joseki variations are numerous and involve a specific order of play, you may feel that there is no organized way to learn them. Nevertheless, even amateurs must try to develop a reasonable command of joseki. Fortunately, even though there are approximately 20,000 of these sequences, the most frequent only number about 300. Learning these fundamental variations is not unduly burdensome and is essential for advancing as well as for enjoying Go. The challenge lies in their effective application.


Toshiro Kageyama (7 Dan) ---- Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go

Josekis are composed of the best moves for both sides, or of essentially equal variations. Moves that depart from the joseki are usually bad and deserve to be punished. ... Most players, however, do not know how to handle non-joseki moves. In fact, they exhaust themselves so much in worrying about josekis that by the time they get to the important places in the middle game and beyond, they are in no condition to fight and win. All the trouble they have taken to learn josekis turns out not to do them the least good. It even weakens their game. I dare say that many people have been through this experience.

    Joseki scholar = weakness

    Total self-reliance = strength

We see these equations every day. One big question, then, is left. What of the large number of joseki books that float around the country? If their mission was to help go players become stronger, what has corrupted them into worse-than-useless bookshelf decorations? The answer lies in the doubtful ways in which they are studied.

Personally, I consider studying joseki to be one of the first steps in getting strong. That is why there are so many joseki books in existence. Now, let's look at the proper way to study them.

  1. Do think that al you have to do is learn the moves. That is not studying the joseki.
  2. Every stone played by both sides in a joseki is the best move, so it is important to know the reason for it -- its content, its meaning. I you can convince yourself as to why the stone is played where it is and why it is a good move, then you have done some studying.
  3. Joseki moves are always the best moves on a local scale, but they sometimes become the worst moves in relation to the surrounding positions. This is what keeps go from becoming dull, what makes it interesting.

Naiwei Rui (9 Dan) ---- Essential Joseki

The opening is the embryonic form of a game, and joseki form the skeleton of the opening. Because of this, after an introduction to the game, the study of joseki becomes an urgent requirement. If you have a grasp of a few basic joseki, then in the early opening you have something to rely on, so you can avoid suffering a big loss. But here when I say "Grasp," I do not mean rote memorization. Naturally it is necessary for a beginner to memorize a few simple basic joseki. But eventually you must start to pay attention to the selection of the proper joseki from among those you have already memorized. You must try your best to match the joseki to the surrounding situation and even to the full board position. This is because despite the importance of joseki, they are just localized battles. Simple-mindedly avoiding a local loss is not good enough. If you are determined to raise the level of your go play, then being able to play out joseki from start to finish from memory is no more than a good first stage. The path you want to take from here on is to understand the meaning of each joseki and how to find the joseki that matches the full board position.


Richard Bozulich (3 Dan) ---- Get Strong at Joseki

Studying joseki is an excellent way to increase your go strength. Josekis contain countless examples of all kinds of tesujis, examples of making goo shape, and examples of good style. However, studying josekis does not mean memorizing josekis; rather, you should approach the study of josekis to gain an appreciation of the good moves they contain, in the same way you would study the games of master players. You may not immediately understand why joseki moves are good, but then you will see the same kind of move played in another context. Slowly you will begin to gain an appreciation and an understanding of these moves. Eventually, you will find yourself making these good moves instinctively without thinking.