I got 38 basic Joseki book but it almost never talks about modern fuseki. I recently switched from double 3-4 to 4-4. Any advice to catch up on theory, or as least to start?
2 Likes
It’s good that you are asking, because learning old joseki can be dangerous. You have to unlearn them afterwards, which is much harder than not learning them in the first place. 
Here is how I learned the theory:
- Play some games and pick the best moves you know.
- When you lose, review your games (with a mentor or AI). If you made a joseki mistake, try to understand the correct variation. This “understanding” also includes what is happening on the whole board and why this variation suits the position, because local variations are always chosen based on your global needs.
- Play the new variation and see how it works out. Never think you have learned something unless you have successfully remembered it in game.
- Get inspiration from professional games for new moves to try.
Please do not be disappointed if this is not what you wanted. I know we are always looking for a “reference“ or a “book of solutions and answers”. But you must “not learn joseki, but learn from joseki“. Memorizing a sequence without the reasons behind it gives you only the illusion of knowing it.
Edit: I should also say that there is some joseki theory worth knowing. It is about how a fashionable sequence emerges from a meta-game competition to find something more effective than the state of the art. Just keep in mind that the “joseki” is just a reference point to start your true game plan. 
38 basic is sadly quite outdated like all books published before AI (2016)
There are some topic to read in this forum and a few new books or videos too.
For example
1 Like
I don’t think it’s dangerous to learn old joseki. It’s not like the resultsing positions are terrible. Especially at your level (13k?) I don’t think you need to worry about that.
Even though AI has its preferences for some specific modern opening moves and joseki, it doesn’t really matter all that much at amateur level. If there is one thing that we learned from AI, it is that we are much more free in the opening than we used to think.
Even when you play some suboptimal moves in the opening, as long as they are sensible moves, the game will usually still be pretty close when the middle game starts. And the game will probably be decided in the middle game anyway, not in the opening.
That being said, chances are that many joseki in that book went out of fashion in the decades since that book was publised, so you may not encounter them very often in your games and learning those may be some wasted effort.
3 Likes
I will second that. The joseki are outdated for pros where even a small advantage could affect heavily how the board is played out. For our level, where such minor nuance is lost, I do not think that it makes much difference.
As far as I am concerned, I do not think that any of us would have complained if they could play like Sakata Eio in his prime, for example, outdate decades-old joseki and all.
Also, it balances out a bit…
… because this could also mean that modern players might not know how to play the optimal/joseki moves, either.
3 Likes
Unless your group collapses or you fall to some trick play, there is very little chance that the game is decided in the opening. This is true even for top players. So just learn whatever fuseki you want and play whatever joseki that you want. The most important thing is to enjoy the game
6 Likes
If the OP finds some moves on their own and they are not exactly optimal, that’s fine. If it’s tengen or 3-2 on move one, the game goes on. But from a teaching perspective, I only teach the strongest moves that I know of. That is why I cannot recommend “38 Basic Joseki”.
In any case, I just put some of the old patterns which I thought were terrible into KataGo. You were right, they’re not that bad!
Everyone knows this one already. This exchange used to go without saying, but is actually inaccurate.
Here is a very historically interesting sequence that gives white a huge corner. White used to pass this up for a much more complicated worse alternative with crosscuts and ladders. What a shame for everyone who sank a lot of time into studying it.
This is probably the worst of the bunch, and just -3 points in the eyes of KataGo.
This is an old joseki where white can just cut at A and ruin black’s day.
This used to be the go-to for kyu players to “avoid complications”.
So these are the things that might happen to you if you play old joseki. Even if it’s just 3 points or less, why subject anyone to these situations deliberately?
Back in and around 2018, new insights from the AlphaGo teaching tool into old variations, including the patterns here, were posted by Viktor Lin 6d on his blog. They are still good for entertainment:
Another Proof… | Viktor Lin, Top 10 Shocking Winning Percentages of the AlphaGo Teaching Tool | Viktor Lin
More such comparisons were posted on explorebaduk, but that is now offline.
Because if they know the old joseki well, and lose a couple points, it is better than trying a more complicated joseki where they could misplay and lose a whole corner.
Of course if the new joseki is simpler than the old one, that is different.