Thank you very much for the description! I wish we had an English translation of this book, I would like very much to read it.

I totally agree with John that it is a waste of time if you do not understand the language and try to read the book using only the diagrams.

However if you do understand Japanese or have a translation of the book (I have the Chinese translation) I do think it is still a good read for dan level players maybe even strong SDKs. The Q and A format of the book was actually designed to be more friendly to amateurs.

The whole book consists of series of conversations between a made up character Mr. Q (assumed to be amateur 2 dan) and Go Seigen. Mr. Q would ask questions any curious amateur would normally ask about josekis in pro games, and Go would explain why certain moves (often slight deviation or less common variations of standard josekis) were played using words and diagrams. To give you a taste here is the very first series.

Mr. Q asked Go sensei why in Diagram 1 was not played at the usual low position "a".

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c Diagram 1
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . a . 4 . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . 0 . , 8 . . |
$$ | . . . 5 . . . . . . . . . . . 1 6 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . , . . . . 3 , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

Go: The usual "Kitani Joseki" is at (Diagram 2). After that moves to immediately comes to mind. In this position you can probably tell that would be better played at "a".

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Diagram 2
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 5 . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 4 3 . . . . . . . . . 1 . O . . . |
$$ | . . 6 , . . . . . , . . . a . , O . . |
$$ | . . . X b . . . . . . . . . . X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . X , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

Mr. Q: I still don't see it.
Go: That is, if was at "a" instead, then after white would immediately attach at b, and now do you see a mojo developing on the top side? The effects of "a" and are quite different. In this game, black played 4-5 points on both top left and bottom right, that is why white decided to play the higher knight's move at "a".

In the book Go continued to explain a little about the actual game where black played moves to avoid the outcome shown in Diagram 2 (Black did not play on the right side to finish the joseki, instead he immediately played a move to protect top left corner).

Wolfking, what is the name of the Chinese translation?

The title of the Chinese translation is How to Apply Josekis (定式的运用), translated by Guo Tisheng(过惕生) and Geng Yi(庚奕), published by People's Sports Publishing House (人民体育出版社).

Thanks. This is it, yah?



Really putting a strain on my wallet at $1.50 + shipping

On the off chance someone is reading this thread who doesn't read /r/baduk on reddit, here's a link to an English subtitled analysis by a 9D pro of his game with alphago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QupHEQbuc30

Yes this is the one! The book was published in the 80s so quality was not that great but cannot beat the price!

I'm working on a translation of a talk show program that has a lot of culture, but it is a big project as there are more phrases I am not familiar with and the program is a long 90 minutes. Here is what I have so far.



edit (22 Sept): It's taken me over 2 hours to get another 18 mins down, there's so much talking. Up to 36 mins now.#
edit (11 Feb 21): I've finally finished the whole thing!

13 Feb 21: I'm working on the next one, taking 2 hours to do the first 10 minutes. I am learning some phrases though and taking down everything rather than roughly transcribing the gist.

DHu, have you had a chance to finish this translation? I love these kinds of very personal commentaries where context and personal emotion is included in addition to game variations.

I'm afraid I haven't gotten any further. Also, I'm going into uni exam term, so I don't think I can commit much time to these translations.

On the other hand, thank you for your appreciation, I'll see what I can do.

Thanks Dhu - Take your time and good luck at school. If you find the time to finish it eventually, that would be great!

baduktv

I don't understand korean, but the gist is clear enough, and this is such a good series, I'd like to share some of it. It's particularly good for dan players, but exciting enough that kyu players will find it fun.

The topic is 100 problems of myosu (brilliant moves) in pro games by Kim Seong ryung



here is a teaser from the above sgf

I've been going through my archives and found I've done several more translations.

I just spent most of today finishing heart1, uploaded a few posts above.

Without too much better to do, I could translate a few more videos.

Tournament review


I like Duan Rong's style, but I don't remember what this is

Fang Tian Feng is famous for being a life and death problem creator I think, and teaches Go at some top university. He also beat Gu Li a few years ago.




And one I just translated.

Also the teacher of Liu Yuanbo 2p aka MilanMilan 9d on KGS, teacher on various China Go trips including the one I went on with Andrew Kay and Will Brooks in 2007. And various top Europeans in other years like Antti Tormanen and Lukas Podpera (who beat him with an avalanche trick iirc). AK has some transcribed guest lectures from Fang on his site. https://andrewkay.name/go/

some more of heart, just the first 10 minutes of history, no go yet

Another 10 mins of Chen Zude. It takes some time to research Japanese names.



Note that I have completed heart2 (posted with heart 1) above.

Chinese Go association seem to have published a Chinese-English dictionary of Go terminology 围棋术语字典 recently, said to be 7 years in the making and an important beginning.

20210203: I anticipate I won't spend more time on this for a few years