Joseki for Beginners: What Joseki Are and the Three to Know
A joseki is a standard corner sequence, a set of moves that players have agreed over many centuries gives a fair result to both sides. The word is Japanese and means something close to “established position”. There are thousands of them on record, and a beginner needs almost none: what you actually need is to understand what each move in a corner is trying to do, so you can invent a reasonable answer when your opponent plays something you have never seen.
Why learning joseki does not make you stronger
There is an old Go proverb about this: learn joseki, lose two stones. It sounds like a joke and it is not. The reason is that a joseki is only correct in the position it was designed for. Copy a sequence you memorised into a board where the surrounding stones are different, and you will get a result that is technically balanced in isolation and bad in the game you are actually playing.
The other problem is that memorising the moves skips the part that matters. Every move in a corner sequence answers a question: is this stone strong enough yet, whose side is bigger, can that group still be attacked. If you know the answers, you can work out the move. If you only know the move, you learn nothing you can use anywhere else.
So the useful version for a beginner is: know two or three shapes well enough to play them without panicking, and spend the rest of your effort on the basic strategy principles that apply everywhere on the board.
1. The knight’s approach to a 4-4 stone
This is the sequence you will meet most often. Black has a stone on the 4-4 point. White approaches it a knight’s move away along one side, which is the standard way of saying “you don’t get this corner for free”.
The simplest good answer is a knight’s move of Black’s own, played on the other side of the corner. It takes the corner area, develops down the open side, and does not start a fight. White then extends two spaces along the top to make a base for the approach stone, and the sequence is finished.
Both players got something reasonable. Black has a corner and a direction to grow in; White has a settled group on the top side. One detail to keep in mind: Black’s corner is not sealed. White can still go underneath at the 3-3 point later, which is a normal endgame move rather than a disaster.
2. The 3-3 invasion under a 4-4 stone
The second shape worth knowing is the one that turns up when nobody approaches: your opponent simply drops into the corner at the 3-3 point and lives there. White takes about ten points of corner, Black ends with a wall facing outward, and the exchange is even.
The whole sequence, move by move, along with the one real decision in it (which side to block on) is on the 3-3 invasion page. It is worth knowing by heart because it happens in nearly every game on a full-sized board, and because the wrong blocking direction is a mistake you can make in one move.
3. The corner enclosure from a 3-4 stone
This one is not strictly a joseki, because a joseki involves both players and this is two moves by the same person. It is a corner enclosure (shimari), and it belongs here because it is the shape you build when your opponent leaves your 3-4 stone alone.
Two stones, and the corner is effectively yours. Nobody can live underneath it the way they can under a lone 4-4 stone, and both stones point usefully along the sides. If you play the 3-4 point in the opening, this is what you are hoping to get, and it is the reason your opponent will usually approach the 3-4 stone before you get the chance. The Go opening covers how that race works.
Knowing when the sequence is over
The point where a corner sequence finishes is the point where neither player has a weak group and neither has a move there worth more than the big points elsewhere. When you reach it, you play somewhere else. There is a word for that too: tenuki, playing away from the local situation to take a bigger point on another part of the board.
Beginners usually miss this moment and keep adding stones to a corner that was already settled. A quick check: if your last stone in this corner is not under attack and does not attack anything, and there is still an empty corner or a big open side on the board, the sequence is over. Go take the big point.
Joseki depend on the whole board
The same sequence can be excellent or terrible depending on nothing more than which way the resulting wall points. A wall is only worth something if it faces open board or stones of your own.
That is the reason joseki cannot be learned as a list. The moves are the same in both diagrams; the value is completely different. Choosing between two joseki is almost always a question about the rest of the board, not about the corner, which is the same judgement covered in good shape in Go.
Where to look joseki up later
When you do want a reference, the two most used are Josekipedia and the joseki explorer built into OGS. Both let you click through the standard sequences and the variations that branch off them. Use them to check what happened after a game, not to memorise moves before one.
For now, the better use of your time is playing. Start a game and take corners first: you will hit these three shapes within your first few games, and they make far more sense once you have been on the wrong end of one.
Frequently asked questions
What does joseki mean?
Joseki is a Japanese Go term for a standard corner sequence that is considered fair to both players. In everyday use it refers to the corner patterns themselves. The same word is occasionally used for standard sequences elsewhere on the board, but corners are what people normally mean.
Should beginners learn joseki?
Not as a memorisation exercise. Learn two or three basic shapes so you are not lost when a corner fight starts, and put your effort into liberties, life and death, and choosing the biggest point. A memorised sequence played in the wrong position loses more than not knowing it at all, which is what the proverb about losing two stones is getting at.
How many joseki are there?
Thousands, counting all the variations that have been catalogued, and new ones still appear as strong computer programs turn up ideas nobody had tried. You need almost none of them. Most strong amateur players use a few dozen shapes and work everything else out from principles at the board.