Joelnelsonb wrote:
Thank you for this post. This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about in the previous post above; using principle analogies from one game to better understand the other. I guess I didn't realize that joseki is so much about exchange for territory vs influence. I thought when people said "equal for both sides", they meant just that. So you're saying that choosing the proper joseki is about creating the imbalance which favors you're strategy for the rest of the game? While were on the topic of joseki, I do have some basic questions: with so many joseki out there, are there such things as like the "common" ones that any real player ought to know? I always wonder when I study pro games "how do they agree upon which joseki variation to use?" What are the odds that two different players would not only know the same joseki but choose to use the same one at the same time? And what if one player starts the joseki and the other player see's that it's ultimately better for his opponent and doesn't want to play it? Is there a battle of the josekis as both players try to player their own way? Furthermore, what if your opponent doesn't even know you're playing a Joseki? I mean, do all strong players always settle every corner with joseki? Is that just standard play for corners?
Every move you play is about creating an imbalance that favors your strategy. Since no two stones can occupy the same intersection, there is an imbalance.
I would think yeah there are a lot of common joseki that most players know. Understanding is more important than knowing.
Your questions sound kind of weird. But I'll try to answer them.
Go is like a disagreement.
Yes if White thinks Black is offering a poor exchange White has ways to resist.
Sometimes White will take a loss locally to get a good position globally. Like Quantumf said there's more to exchanges than territory and influence.
Sometimes White will tenuki (play away) because he thinks a different part of the board is more important, or if White settles a different side of the board first he can get a better idea of how to respond to Black locally.
So yes if you don't want to respond to your opponent's moves you do have options.
When pros both agree on a joseki I imagine it's for one of two reasons:
More likely they disagree on who benefits more from the exchange
Less likely they have found the actual best move on the board
Also no games aren't always settling each corner individually.
I think joseki is a weird place to look if you want chess analogies.
Understanding joseki comes from understanding other concepts like having a base, shape, sacrifice, cutting, aji
Making a base is like protecting your pawn before it's under attack. Sure you could wait until it's under attack to defend it, but then your opponent is controlling the flow of the game. If your pawn is steady now, you can decide later whether you want to continue strengthening it or develop elsewhere.
Some moves are made just to give your opponent bad shape. Like a move that forces your opponent to put a knight on the side.
Sacrifice's are kind of the same you give up material for tempo (sente) or some other advantage. Or there's large scale sacrifice where you and your opponent might disagree on the value of certain positions.
I'm not sure how to describe cutting. Sometimes it's like a fork where you start two attacks at the same time. Sometimes it's disrupting communication and making stones not work together like blocking rooks from sharing the same rank.
Aji is like when your knight is stuck on the side. You want to move him, but you don't really have time.
I would agree with the other people in the thread and say that if your goal is to improve quickly this might not be the most efficient path. But I enjoy thinking about it.
The reason for my original post though was just that I was curious if there were some mainlines I could learn and start practicing beyond the first few moves. You know, something I could use every time I play until I learn something new. It's recommended that you play a new Chess opening for a year before moving onto another one so I would probably stick to that. I'm just craving deeper strategy in my play and so I'm looking for ways to be thinking about advantages right from the get go and how to ride them through the middle and into the end game.
Yeah there are some common beginner joseki.
There is a book called 38 basic Joseki.
But if you read a book like Opening Theory Made Easy, you could find these moves for yourself.
But I like Uber's suggestion too. Ignore that you're getting some loss in the corner and just learn local fighting skills.
