punishing joseki

CXUD · #1

I was wondering why josekis are everywhere for people to learn but why a comprehensive list for learning how to punish people for deviating from joseki is from what I've seen nowhere to be found.

Chew Terr · #2

The easiest answer: if there are thousands of joseki, there are twenty times that many ways to deviate, and even more ways to choose to 'punish' them. So you have a couple of options. First, work on your sense of direction of play and your reading. This will let you have a better idea of what your options are. For example, your reading will let you see "well, I can block here to seal white in or play here to start a fight", and your sense of direction will let you decide what better works with your stones on the board.

As a matter of fact, until you are stronger than me, instead of just learning joseki, I recommend JUST focusing on direction of play/reading decisions in these sorts of situations. Whether or not you know a joseki, these will let you construct something servicable most of the time. Joseki can be a good way to learn what options you have and what shapes are common, but it's easy to use them as a crutch that result in you playing the same half-dozen shapes over and over without learning from it.

If you have a really big problem with a joseki in a game, look it up, but for the most part, joseki mistakes don't need to be punished. A lot of times, it will make a less efficient shape, which will come back to bit your opponent on its own. Generally the times when it can be punished is when it leaves a weakness in your opponent's shape, which is what you can look for.

Bill Spight · #3

CXUD wrote:

I was wondering why josekis are everywhere for people to learn but why a comprehensive list for learning how to punish people for deviating from joseki is from what I've seen nowhere to be found.

Joseki dictionaries and encyclopedias have many such examples. Other resources are books about trick plays.

CXUD · #4

I can't figure out how to work this thing.

http://www.josekipedia.com/

edit: well I can but not that well.

Chew Terr wrote:

The easiest answer: if there are thousands of joseki, there are twenty times that many ways to deviate, and even more ways to choose to 'punish' them. So you have a couple of options. First, work on your sense of direction of play and your reading. This will let you have a better idea of what your options are. For example, your reading will let you see "well, I can block here to seal white in or play here to start a fight", and your sense of direction will let you decide what better works with your stones on the board.

As a matter of fact, until you are stronger than me, instead of just learning joseki, I recommend JUST focusing on direction of play/reading decisions in these sorts of situations. Whether or not you know a joseki, these will let you construct something servicable most of the time. Joseki can be a good way to learn what options you have and what shapes are common, but it's easy to use them as a crutch that result in you playing the same half-dozen shapes over and over without learning from it.

If you have a really big problem with a joseki in a game, look it up, but for the most part, joseki mistakes don't need to be punished. A lot of times, it will make a less efficient shape, which will come back to bit your opponent on its own. Generally the times when it can be punished is when it leaves a weakness in your opponent's shape, which is what you can look for.

I've been trying for a long time to figure out direct of play/reading sort of stuff, for instance overplays I don't know how to punish them, I suck at it and figured that learning how to punish people for overplays in deviating from josekis would be a good way to learn it since I can't find a more comprehensive source.

p2501 · #5

There is a book on the topic:

http://senseis.xmp.net/?PunishingAndCor ... kiMistakes

CXUD · #6

I can't buy it, wanted to. It just seems strange to me because every joseki pattern has a reason behind it and I can always find the patterns, I can always find a million pros talking about how the pattern has no worth without the reasoning behind it, but I cant find the reasoning or the punishments so I would at least have a general sense, if not to play out that exact pattern in a game then at least to add it to my reading skills, which suck. Just some basic punishments for deviating from these basic patterns would be good

http://senseis.xmp.net/?TaxonomyOfJoseki

edit: actually that link does have some of them, for some reason I had gotten the impression they weren't there. I need to read more carefully.

gowan · #7

CXUD wrote:

I can't figure out how to work this thing.

http://www.josekipedia.com/

edit: well I can but not that well.

Chew Terr wrote:

The easiest answer: if there are thousands of joseki, there are twenty times that many ways to deviate, and even more ways to choose to 'punish' them. So you have a couple of options. First, work on your sense of direction of play and your reading. This will let you have a better idea of what your options are. For example, your reading will let you see "well, I can block here to seal white in or play here to start a fight", and your sense of direction will let you decide what better works with your stones on the board.

As a matter of fact, until you are stronger than me, instead of just learning joseki, I recommend JUST focusing on direction of play/reading decisions in these sorts of situations. Whether or not you know a joseki, these will let you construct something servicable most of the time. Joseki can be a good way to learn what options you have and what shapes are common, but it's easy to use them as a crutch that result in you playing the same half-dozen shapes over and over without learning from it.

If you have a really big problem with a joseki in a game, look it up, but for the most part, joseki mistakes don't need to be punished. A lot of times, it will make a less efficient shape, which will come back to bit your opponent on its own. Generally the times when it can be punished is when it leaves a weakness in your opponent's shape, which is what you can look for.

I've been trying for a long time to figure out direct of play/reading sort of stuff, for instance overplays I don't know how to punish them, I suck at it and figured that learning how to punish people for overplays in deviating from josekis would be a good way to learn it since I can't find a more comprehensive source.

"Punishing" joseki deviations is a very difficult thing because often everything depends on the whole-board situation, it's not just a matter of what's going on with the stones locally. Sometimes following a joseki sequence can be a mistake. This, again, could be the case because of stones some distance from the joseki stones. One of the best books showing how this works is Whole Board Thinking in Joseki by Yilun Yang. Unfortunately these issues are somewhat advanced and so you shouldn't get discouraged if it doesn't make sense to you now. Play a lot of games and, if possible, get them commented on by a stronger player. Look at games between strong players and watch how they make their stones work together. One more thing, sometimes a deviation from a joseki can be a new joseki move, so just because your opponent doesn't play a move you expect, it doesn't mean you can punish your opponent's move. In fact trying to punish it might be an overplay. One of the best ways to handle all this is to try to understand the reason for every move in a joseki. Then, when your opponent deviates from a joseki you may be able to see how your opponent's move failed to do something important. Finally, mistakes in joseki sometimes only lose one or two points or leave a vulnerability that can only be exploited many moves later. Obviously in this case it might be difficult to see how to take advantage.

Chew Terr · #8

For the sake of punishing overplay, countsheep has a series of videos on the subject at http://www.gocommentary.com/ . I don't remember off the top of my head how high the target level is, but they're free and high-quality.

daniel_the_smith · #9

CXUD wrote:

I was wondering why josekis are everywhere for people to learn but why a comprehensive list for learning how to punish people for deviating from joseki is from what I've seen nowhere to be found.

I'm making some assumptions here, but typically the sorts of moves a 20k wants to know how to punish are best covered in problem (life and death or tesuji) books. Most of the material aimed specifically at joseki mistakes is at least SDK level, if not dan level. In other words, you have to be fairly good before you even make the mistakes that joseki material will tell you how to punish. I'd be astonished if you can find material on punishing 20k joseki mistakes. If you're wondering why your opponents never play joseki and how to punish them... the answer is because they're 20k, and the solution is to improve your reading.

Chew Terr · **#10**

For what it's worth, I just remembered, the Get Strong at Joseki books are all problem books aimed at correctly identifying joseki followups and punishing joseki mistakes. They're still a bit high-level to be worth worrying about, but I like using them sometimes for local position quizes. Again though, joseki aren't what I'd work on. Good stuff to focus on, in my opinion, is more along the lines of 'Do I keep my groups stable/strong all game', and 'How many of my moves take points, stabilize my groups, or destabilize my opponents' groups?' With the latter, it may be worth investigating which don't serve any of those purposes, and considering whether or not they're mistakes.

CXUD · **#11**

That's something I have trouble with, balancing the desire to get more with stabilizing my groups, especially since I have trouble seeing what can or can't come from a certain situation.

daniel_the_smith wrote:

CXUD wrote:

I was wondering why josekis are everywhere for people to learn but why a comprehensive list for learning how to punish people for deviating from joseki is from what I've seen nowhere to be found.

I'm making some assumptions here, but typically the sorts of moves a 20k wants to know how to punish are best covered in problem (life and death or tesuji) books. Most of the material aimed specifically at joseki mistakes is at least SDK level, if not dan level. In other words, you have to be fairly good before you even make the mistakes that joseki material will tell you how to punish. I'd be astonished if you can find material on punishing 20k joseki mistakes. If you're wondering why your opponents never play joseki and how to punish them... the answer is because they're 20k, and the solution is to improve your reading.

I'm a 12 kyu on kgs, haven't updated my rating yet. Really I just want to learn joseki so I don't fall for simple overplays that other people would know what to do about. Not overplays that are actually part of a larger strategy, I mean just being able to not panic when someone hanes or ataris when I wasn't expecting it.

Chew Terr wrote:

For the sake of punishing overplay, countsheep has a series of videos on the subject at http://www.gocommentary.com/ . I don't remember off the top of my head how high the target level is, but they're free and high-quality.

It looks pretty good, weiqi master on youtube was another good one. I think I need to memorize some basic patterns so it'll stick better. I can never seem to avoid atari in the simplest of situations, every game seems like a new day.

gowan wrote:

CXUD wrote:

I can't figure out how to work this thing.

http://www.josekipedia.com/

edit: well I can but not that well.

Chew Terr wrote:

The easiest answer: if there are thousands of joseki, there are twenty times that many ways to deviate, and even more ways to choose to 'punish' them. So you have a couple of options. First, work on your sense of direction of play and your reading. This will let you have a better idea of what your options are. For example, your reading will let you see "well, I can block here to seal white in or play here to start a fight", and your sense of direction will let you decide what better works with your stones on the board.

As a matter of fact, until you are stronger than me, instead of just learning joseki, I recommend JUST focusing on direction of play/reading decisions in these sorts of situations. Whether or not you know a joseki, these will let you construct something servicable most of the time. Joseki can be a good way to learn what options you have and what shapes are common, but it's easy to use them as a crutch that result in you playing the same half-dozen shapes over and over without learning from it.

If you have a really big problem with a joseki in a game, look it up, but for the most part, joseki mistakes don't need to be punished. A lot of times, it will make a less efficient shape, which will come back to bit your opponent on its own. Generally the times when it can be punished is when it leaves a weakness in your opponent's shape, which is what you can look for.

I've been trying for a long time to figure out direct of play/reading sort of stuff, for instance overplays I don't know how to punish them, I suck at it and figured that learning how to punish people for overplays in deviating from josekis would be a good way to learn it since I can't find a more comprehensive source.

"Punishing" joseki deviations is a very difficult thing because often everything depends on the whole-board situation, it's not just a matter of what's going on with the stones locally. Sometimes following a joseki sequence can be a mistake. This, again, could be the case because of stones some distance from the joseki stones. One of the best books showing how this works is Whole Board Thinking in Joseki by Yilun Yang. Unfortunately these issues are somewhat advanced and so you shouldn't get discouraged if it doesn't make sense to you now. Play a lot of games and, if possible, get them commented on by a stronger player. Look at games between strong players and watch how they make their stones work together. One more thing, sometimes a deviation from a joseki can be a new joseki move, so just because your opponent doesn't play a move you expect, it doesn't mean you can punish your opponent's move. In fact trying to punish it might be an overplay. One of the best ways to handle all this is to try to understand the reason for every move in a joseki. Then, when your opponent deviates from a joseki you may be able to see how your opponent's move failed to do something important. Finally, mistakes in joseki sometimes only lose one or two points or leave a vulnerability that can only be exploited many moves later. Obviously in this case it might be difficult to see how to take advantage.

I read up on the whole board aspect of it and it's something I comprehend pretty well, I wanted to know how to do josekis to not get killed in fights. I figure the basics of josekis will teach me some of the basic things to look out for. I can see how "punishing" is a complicated issue with variations and whole board issues though. I have no intention of following any joseki pattern really, I just want to know how to watch out for certain things.

Bantari · **#12**

CXUD wrote:

I was wondering why josekis are everywhere for people to learn but why a comprehensive list for learning how to punish people for deviating from joseki is from what I've seen nowhere to be found.

All in all, this is a very 'naive' notion that a joseki mistake is something that can be immediately 'punished'.

The fact that you made mistake and made a move which is sub-optimal is uaually punishment enough. Because this means that while you could have made more profit from the joseki, you did non. Or maybe later on you will have to make an additional move and defend... Sometimes a joseki mistake means that 200 moves later, you will have to give up sente or lose a point. Stuff like that...

Sure, every now and then you make a bad blunder and you can really get 'punished' and lose the corner or something drastic like that. But this can usually be read out on the board easily, so there is no point writing books about all such moves. Strong(er) playersalmost never male such mistakes, and when they do their opponents do not need books for profiting from that. Weak(er) players, on the other hand, would be hopelessly lost in any book even attempting to describe all the different ways a joseki can be mishandled.

I think that the most important thing is to try to understand why a joseki sequence is a good sequence. Once you understand that, it will be easy for you to understand why a deviation is not so good. And thus - what to do about it, if anything.

CXUD · **#13**

that makes sense.

EdLee · **#14**

CXUD wrote:

but I cant find the reasoning or the punishments

They are all in the basics: shapes, tesujis, life-and-death, direction, cap race, contact fights, etc.
You usually don't find them in joseki dictionaries; they are covered in tons of other books (on tesuji, L&D, etc.)
If you have a firm grasp on the basics (fundamentals), then many joseki moves will (naturally) make much more sense to you.
(Corollary: studying josekis is a good way to learn pro basic shapes, tesuji, etc.

)

CXUD · **#15**

Cap races and contact fights are my biggest problem, I can't get enough comprehensive stuff on them. Like this in the second last diagram http://senseis.xmp.net/?4464Enclosure my mind can't process enough of the necessary things to survive. I know that whatever the position I need to stay connected and extend my liberties but the different possibilities are too overwhelming. It's like my mind can't handle it the same as others. These two things, contact fights and cap races are the whole reason I want to know josekis, so I have even a small idea of how to handle them.

Bill Spight · **#16**

CXUD wrote:

Cap races and contact fights are my biggest problem, I can't get enough comprehensive stuff on them. Like this in the second last diagram http://senseis.xmp.net/?4464Enclosure my mind can't process enough of the necessary things to survive. I know that whatever the position I need to stay connected and extend my liberties but the different possibilities are too overwhelming. It's like my mind can't handle it the same as others. These two things, contact fights and cap races are the whole reason I want to know josekis, so I have even a small idea of how to handle them.

You might want to check out Bruce Wilcox's material on contact fights.

CXUD · **#17**

I have a good feeling about this, I'm gonna check out his stuff.

CXUD · **#18**

I just purchased his program.

Chew Terr · **#19**

Also, something else that might be interesting is Cho Hunhyeon's go lecture books (http://senseis.xmp.net/?ChoHunHyeonsLec ... Techniques). They investigate some good shapes/move types. Then there are a lot of case studies about specific common situations, with a ton of possible moves considered. A lot of these are josekis, so it's a nice lesson on why joseki moves can be good, and when they're not. Since this is more basic theory than joseki memorization, this sort of study may help carry over to a lot more game situations.

Sorry if it sounds like we're ragging on you a lot. People love to hate memorizing joseki and specifics.

CXUD · **#20**

I'm glad to get any help I can get.

I realize this sounds strange but I can't buy paper books, I've adopted an ahimsa policy, which is nearly impossible to follow, but I add each thing piece by piece and books have been added (along with meat and root vegetables ect.) if there's an online version I'll try to buy it that way though.

punishing joseki

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