Life In 19x19

I'm looking for a basic english Joseki dictionary. I've been using Kogo's, but I've heard some pretty bad things about how well maintained it is and/or it's accuracy. I see that Kiseido has the Dictionary of Basic Joseki in 3 parts by Ishida Yoshio.

I didn't know if there were any other books. I'm not looking for a problem book or anything, just something as a reference, to look up things when reviewing games.

Ellisdee wrote:I'm looking for a basic english Joseki dictionary. I've been using Kogo's, but I've heard some pretty bad things about how well maintained it is and/or it's accuracy. I see that Kiseido has the Dictionary of Basic Joseki in 3 parts by Ishida Yoshio.

I didn't know if there were any other books. I'm not looking for a problem book or anything, just something as a reference, to look up things when reviewing games.

http://www.brugo.be and http://www.josekipedia.com are both pretty good...

Ellisdee wrote:I'm looking for a basic english Joseki dictionary. I've been using Kogo's, but I've heard some pretty bad things about how well maintained it is and/or it's accuracy. I see that Kiseido has the Dictionary of Basic Joseki in 3 parts by Ishida Yoshio.

I didn't know if there were any other books. I'm not looking for a problem book or anything, just something as a reference, to look up things when reviewing games.

Ishida's Dictionary of Basic Joseki should suffice for your studying needs. It may not always have the newest cutting edge joseki developments, but that really doesn't matter much until you're a pretty strong dan player, IMO. Most online resources are amateur efforts, and thus their advice should always be taken with a grain of salt, even if they are based on professional sources.

Personally, I really like using a database to see what professionals have actually played in similar positions (I use GoGoD mysself, but others such as SmartGo or MasterGo will serve you just as well for this purpose).

The Ishida three-volume set is certainly worth having, I think. But if you want a smaller book to tote around when you feel like studying joseki, maybe Yutopian's "Essential Joseki" by Naiwei Rui.

Is 38 basic joseki still worth getting? I don't have it and am planning to.

Phelan wrote:Is 38 basic joseki still worth getting? I don't have it and am planning to.

The joseki content is fine (don't bother worrying about it being outdated or anything), but I don't remember finding it particularly useful. eidogo.com and so on are pretty good nowadays for simple joseki, even if their complex lines aren't reliable.

It was somewhere between 5k and 1d that the many inaccuracies of eidogo.com, josekipedia etc. became obvious to me. Books like Ishida are still excellent for their explanations, but mostly I use GoGod to see what pros actually play - and to try to work out why.

To the original question, I think Ishida is excellent. It's much more detailed than Kogos. Using it in conjunction with a games database is a good combination, in my opinion.

I don't really need such an extensive database right now. But, out of curiosity, is it worth getting GoGoD if you already have, say, SmartGo? I know SmartGo will identify duplicate games, but I'm wondering how much they overlap.

From the smartgo site:

SmartGo also works with other game collections you may have. For example, there are about 10000 games in the GoGoD game collection that are not in SmartGo. SmartGo will detect and discard duplicate games.

Thanks, CarlJung. Easy answer.

Phelan wrote:Is 38 basic joseki still worth getting? I don't have it and am planning to.

It seems to me to be a good 'My First Joseki' book. It shows some common ones, but spends a good amount of time going into why you would choose one over the others, and why some of the critical moves are chosen. It doesn't try to be as comprehensive as a dictionary, but does try to answer more of the 'why' questions.

I'm working my way through it now, and trying to learn enough to recreate the joseki by 'This move feels right because of this reason'.

I would recommend the Ishida Joseki dictionary set.

I would just go with something like the Ishida set. Despite what you may think, there really isn't a good selection of joseki dictionaries that are up-to-date in Asia (well, in Korea at least). The way most joseki books are written there is that the author(s) will cover a handful of variations from a handful of corner approaches and commentate on them in detail, similar to the way "Jungsuk in our Times" or "38 Basic Joseki" is done. As a result these books are usually between 200 - 500 pages.

This is contrast to a "dictionary" that covers a wide spectrum of moves but doesn't go into such detailed commentary and focuses more on exhausting the meaningful variations, which would run much more than 500 pages as a result. If I had to use an analogy, it's like getting Webster's dictionary versus a book that covers only the words that start from A - F, but goes into great depths explaining the meaning and etymology behind the words, such as extensive history and complete with pictures. However, I'd say the Ishida set is kind of in the middle between the two categories of joseki books so you get the best of both worlds, though as everyone already pointed out it's not up-to-date.

So as far as true joseki dictionaries that are up-to-date (you can find such dictionaries that aren't modern, I think you can find some in the tchan thread) go, it's very hard to find in Korea so it's next to impossible here.

Chew Terr wrote:

Phelan wrote:Is 38 basic joseki still worth getting? I don't have it and am planning to.

It seems to me to be a good 'My First Joseki' book. It shows some common ones, but spends a good amount of time going into why you would choose one over the others, and why some of the critical moves are chosen. It doesn't try to be as comprehensive as a dictionary, but does try to answer more of the 'why' questions.

I'm working my way through it now, and trying to learn enough to recreate the joseki by 'This move feels right because of this reason'.

Thanks, this is what I wanted to know.

I think 38 is an excellent book. Not even so much about learning the actual joseki, but for learning the moves that are good in local situations. I went through it closely about a year or so ago, and found that I was understanding much more the types of moves you make in response to standard local shapes. While it's got just a limited number of joseki, if you learn the why you'll understand more.

I also think Ishida is very good, because most of us will be playing more "standard" joseki, unless we're high dans, and you can look up the ones that arise frequently. Again, even if it doesn't have everything, just going through the good vs bad moves teaches a lot about shape, sente, etc.

I've been thinking about getting Jungsuk in Our Time but from what's been said here, I'm wondering if the Ishida collection might be better given its breadth. On the other hand, why not just get both...