The problem with almost all GO literature and puzzles is it emphasizes what the “right” move without explaining much about the worse moves. In many situations I know what the “right” move is because any book will tell you so, but then I’m flying blind–the worst kind of non-learning, doing what you’re told, not because you understand it.
What is needed is “here’s why this move is bad and how to take advantage of it.” I frequently do the “right” thing, and seem to gain no advantage from it.
There is debate around this. First many go books do have some wrong answer dia. being opposed to the right answer.
Then what you tell us is more a problem at lower levels as later when you get better grasp on shapes, haengma, on some common ways of playing. These first steps are in fact rarely explained, and have to be self explored. An experienced player may be of great help. I did share the same feeling as you have now, but finally just went through it. If it’s written the 2 spaces jump makes a base on the side, well you’ll have to experiment it for example.
Then there is a common disgrace to show the wrong the not working, as this could get confused with the right, and not leading into progress. In some way, I give you the right, do what you want with the wrong…
Why don’t you just ask what questions you have in this thread?
Another good way to learn what wrong moves are is asking for reviews. Usually in a review there is more focus on what went wrong than on what went right.
This reminds me of josekis: those sequences are balanced, but when the opponent plays the “wrong” move what can I do? How to punish overplay? How to take advantage of slow moves?
Must we learn that by trial and error?
I used to try to sanction far too much failures in joseki. In fact many times it was just a matter of 1point or 2, or less ko threats,…
Well I was suggesting to add some responses to ‘bad’ moves to the OGS joseki explorer.
For example theres the Get Strong at joseki volumes 1,2,3 which are all problem books for joseki. There’s also Mingjiu Jiang’s books “Punishing and Correcting Joseki Mistakes” and “Correct Joseki” as well as a book by Yilun Yang called “Tricks in Joseki”.
If there’s demand for it I can try add some sequences from them, or maybe the most likely ones to happen, or the ones that look reasonable. I think we discussed it before though with @Eugene and @aesalon and the idea was not to fill up the explorer with bad moves, but to focus more on the playable/even results.
We reach here some limits on copyright but yes I would be interested in some kind of compendium with all these books, maybe as a puzzle aside the joseki tool?
In joseki dictionaries (like the old Ishida) there is some material to pick up too.
Once in a training go camp, during the dinner, two pros, Catalina T 5p and Saijo 9p, were eating near me and at the same time, playing with stones.
They were playing with josekis. Changing a move, see what happens. Influence this time. Points if so. They were studying, call it creating maybe or just a teaching. They lied dozens of positions, quickly in a way that seemed endless.
It was really fascinating for me, I surely forgot what I ate this evening.
We could more and less try to reach that kind of easyness, but that’s maybe not to be find in a book.
I kind of doubt that copyright would cover board positions or puzzles themselves which are board positions. It might cover how they’re presented, the diagram order, the accompanying text/commentary etc. I’m sure josekipedia would’ve run into some similar issue years ago if although maybe there’s just no point in trying to get a position/sequence removed from a joseki explorer.
In any case, I wouldn’t plan on transcribing the whole books. Some are about joseki in the context of fuseki which don’t suit the explorer here (not going to set up whole board positions). It also wouldn’t be useful to add any analysis to a sequence if it contained multiple mistakes (which some books do if they’re reviewing amateur players games like MJ books mentioned above).
The two main problems are just how time consuming it is, and how strong your evaluation of the positions are to really judge if something is even or good/bad for one side etc. I imagine this gets very hard to do in the avalanche, taisha, that magic sword joseki or some of the complicated 3-3 ones.
Nick Sibicky videos do take the “let’s see why this doesn’t work” approach and there are books that do occasionally explore why particular moves are considered “bad choices” in some cases/joseki. E.g. this one:
I sort of remember a discussion about this and I think ‘bad moves’ referred to the refutations that were bad. Like double check that the book refutation isn’t just as big of a mistake as the move it is supposed to refute. I don’t remember it well enough to know of other contributors positions but I’m always for more variations of common mistakes.
Also @greg556 / @lys asking in comments in the Joseki explorer will get you some answers. That is a place for extra discussion that goes beyond simple barebones observations or sourced commentary.
Why did Alphago win?! -
It didn’t know that certain moves were wrong!
and therefore, found out, and developed what for a human is subconscious understanding.
Knowing is not understanding!
That requires the willingness to do it wrong in order to discover the way that is right!