4-4 Point Joseki: A Brief Introduction

Well, I have avoided the study of joseki for quite some time. In general, I intend to continue this trend, at least until I am a bit stronger. I keep hearing from stronger players that it is better to understand the reasons behind moves than to blindly follow some prescribed formula.

That being said, there were two things that drew me to William S. Cobb’s 4-4 Point Joseki: A Brief Introduction: (1) I was playing a lot of handicap games, and the same situations kept cropping up, and (2) it was a convenient size for carrying about whilst traveling.

This book is useful outline of several common approaches to the 4-4 point, and some of the common responses found in the beginning of the game. There are only 16 A6-sized pages of discussion and 26 pages of problems with commented solutions, so it is more of a catalog of common situations than a move-by-move detailed analysis.

Most patterns felt quite familiar from endless hours of playing GnuGo blitz games when I can’t sleep, but it was interesting to have a glimpse of insight into what responses are deemed to be a good result for both sides in various situations.

Coming from the point of view of someone who has not studied joseki at all, it did whet my curiosity about why certain moves were made.  There were several statements like “If White wants a moyo style game…” or “Black may want to control the right side.  In that case…” which made me wish there were more diagrams.  (The author recommends several books for further reading.)

The problems were useful in continuing the discussions started in the earlier chapters.  I found some of them quite difficult.  (I’ve got a lot to learn about whole board thinking!)

As far as a take-home message for this reading, perhaps I’ll just focus on a statement in the preface which informs the rest of the book (skipping out some of the discussion in between):

Two basic principles figure in almost all situations:

• Get out into the centre.
• Make a base.

Playing the Endgame: A Brief Introduction

I’m traveling at the moment, so I thought I’d give a few of the short, stash-’em-in-your-bag books a try.

Playing the Endgame: A Brief Introduction by William S. Cobb is a thin, pocket-sized book that can easily be stashed – the perfect size for airline flights in this day and age of counting luggage weight by the gram.

It is what it says on the tin – a very brief introduction.  In four mini-chapters, Cobb outlines the very basics and then provides a fifth chapter of endgame problems from 200 Endgame Problems (Shirae Haruhiko) which reinforce the first four chapters.

It is not in the scope of the book to go into great depth about endgame moves; I approached it as a reminder of the things I should think about in the endgame when looking for moves along the edge of the board.

Cobb starts with the very basics (choosing double sente movesover reverse sente moves over double gote moves) and illustrates several familiar endgame situations and tesujis.

One of the biggest memory jogs for me was his call to kyu players to leave endgame moves until the actual endgame, and not automatically respond in an endgame sort of way to an endgame sort of move when there are bigger points on the board.

I found the mini-chapter on calculating the value of endgame moves a good excuse to sit down and think through the differences between white and black moving first in several all-too-familar situations which I know I’m likely not to have the time to think through when a tournament clock is running.

I did find the discussion on the point value of various moves slightly confusing; this is a topic I don’t feel I understand well, and from the text, it sounds like there might be some debate within the Go community about how to approach this.  This is something I feel I need to sort out.  This booklet gives some general advice, openly stating that the topic is dealt with in ‘a simplified fashion’.  The point allocations in the problems discussed within the chapter made sense, but I feel I’d like to know more about the way to compare such moves before I can comment on the discussions about quantifying the value of a move and comparing different endgame moves.

My general impression was that this is a great memory jog for topics I’d covered before – very concise and readable in little bursts between roundabouts.  I found the first four chapters very accessible as an 8 kyu.  I wonder if it might not be a little too concise if the topics aren’t familiar, but that might just be my impression based on the knowledge that I’ve got some thinking-through to do about more advanced topics.

I’ve yet to tackle the problem section – perhaps that will happen on the trip home!