Punishing and Correcting Joseki Mistakes-- Review

Punishing and Correcting Joseki Mistakes by Mingjiu Jiang and Adam Miller, sold on the slate and shell website (http://www.slateandshell.com/SSMJ001.html) is a book that I purchased many shipments ago, when I played a 1 dan for the first time, was crushed, and he told me I should study Joseki. I already had Richard Bozulich and Furuyama Kazunari's Get Strong at Joseki series (which can be purchased at www.kiseido.com in their english go books section), but it had been previously inscrutable for me. I ordered P+CJM to help mix up the study attempt. Of the two, I felt that P+CJM was too difficult, so I started with the basic templates presented in Get Strong at Joseki. Yesterday, I finally picked the book back up and cracked its (albeit very thin and difficult to crack) spine to do some problems.

As I moved through the pages of "Joseki" so far deviated from any logical template or acceptable balance, I became largely disappointed. Many diagrams were so different from proper Joseki form that they were more like simplistic Tesuji problems with occasional pearls of Joseki concepts thrown in. I also found that most of the points covered for each sequence were ones that I had realized while building the initial diagram. Even more than either of these reasons, I was disappointed because I found that the book failed to truly make good on its initial promise. It points out how most Joseki books only offer solutions to problematic deviations that aren't ever played, but merely dreamed up by pros, and P+CJM's introduction suggests that it will present variations that help you understand how to punish and correct deviations. I found, however, that compared to the other Joseki texts I've used, P+CJM falls painfully short of doing this.

That said, the book does do several things that I like. Its method for explaining which outcomes can be considered good or bad by providing comparisons to Joseki sequences with similar ending states is very convenient. The book also provided some interesting situations, easily used as food for thought, and as I mentioned before, the occasional pearl of wisdom (although I really only encountered 4 enlightening lines per 27 pages or so.)

All in all, because the book is inappropriate for those inexperienced in Joseki, but it's too easy for those who have spent a little time with Joseki, the experience from the pseudo-tesuji plays could be better gotten by tesuji books, and finally, because I think understanding the basic situation of a joseki will help you achieve a good result more than examining a few stray examples, I think I have to condemn this book as an unnecessary addition to most libraries. On a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being the highest, I rate this one with about a 2. If you've got the money and want the practice provided by seeing these Joseki horrors compared very, very briefly with a correct Joseki, then I'm sure this book could help deepen your experience base, but I don't think it offers anything more than simply watching free games on kgs played by players from the 3 kyu to 3 dan range. Perhaps someone has had a different experience with this book?

Punishing and Correcting Joseki Mistakes: 2 out of 5