Hello, Ms. Kobayashi. Until now, I’ve played my own style, without studying josekis and life-and-death problems. Do you think one can’t get stronger unless one studies these subjects? Consultation Two: Mr. Maeda ‘Learning josekis, I got weaker.’ This is a proverb that’s been around a long time, but I don’t believe in it. Josekis are sequences that have been more or less perfected and in which all the moves are essential. The point of the proverb is that simple memorization is no good; if you try to understand the meaning of each move, learning josekis is bound to help you. Actually, if you don’t learn josekis, don’t you feel a little uneasy when you play? When I was a child, study for me meant actual games and life-and-death problems, so I didn’t study josekis at all. At ordinary go clubs, I got away with playing my own style, but several times a year I would play in tournaments. At those times, I would suddenly feel that I had to study josekis. I felt uneasy because I had no idea if the sequences I was playing in my games were my own inventions or if they were josekis. Once, when I was scheduled to play in a pair-go tournament, someone told me that my partner was fond of the ‘avalanche’ joseki, so I hastily boned up on it. The frightening thing about josekis is that if you use them the wrong way, you play bad moves without realizing it. It’s difficult to understand the meaning of josekis and to use them correctly; it takes considerable strength to play josekis in the positions they are best suited to. In short, what I’m trying to say is that if you do study josekis, it’s important to think about and understand the meaning of each move. Of course, not studying josekis is one option. Sometimes, if you think really hard about your moves, you might play a joseki without knowing it. Go is a complicated game in which the same position never appears twice, so searching for the move you really want to play in each position may be the most natural approach.