I'm thinking of getting all the volumes of the "Level Up" (10 vols.) :

http://www.ymimports.com/p-2225-level-u ... f3gshZ8vzI

http://www.ymimports.com/p-2224-level-u ... f3guhZ8vzI


and "Jump Level Up" series (5 vols.) :

http://www.ymimports.com/p-2058-jump-le ... f3hAxZ8vzI

to incorporate into a (personal) daily study curriculum. They look like very good workbooks, albeit seemingly very informal, starting from very simple concepts/exercises to more advanced ones (30K-10K, 10K-1K).

I was wondering if this is a good investment and if anyone has had any experience with these as part of a study regimen. (I am a DDK)

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Tempus Vincit Omnia

It's for kids mostly. If you are ddk then sure, you will get something out of it but these books are designed for a very slow knowledge adoption, for teaching kids 5-7 yo.

There is a great www site:
http://www.bengozen.com/book-review-level-up-10/

with books reviews so you can get better overview there than just mine opinion here.

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Tsumego/Tesuji apps for iPad, iPhone & Android devices:http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=7511

The answer books are here if you want to have an glance at what level the problems are in each book: http://baduktopia.com/asapro/board/show ... 16&pkid=22

I bought these about a month and a half ago under the same premise.. I actually can't say enough good things about them. I'd say they singlehandedly got me back into trying to play again (and better) to be honest. I was someone who noodled quite a bit (on the computer/online etc) but hadn't really formally gone through any sort of training and quite honestly found most of the english books really quite haphazard in their teaching style (going from way too easy to really impossible to follow in a short breath, or just really simply a list of concepts without linking them all together, in ways they show up in games). These books are clearly coming from the point of view of thinking carefully about pedagogy and further are clearly adapted from real (korean) course books. I actually find the fact that they are written for children one of their greatest strengths, because they are super systematic and super thorough, with a tons of problems for each basic concept.

They bring the basic idea behind how we would teach say math or science to kids to teaching go. Each book is divided into a simple basic concept (which are themselves split into categories like thinking power, judgement ability, spatial sense, reading ability, memory etc), a few examples and then say 15 problems around that concept. Just as in learning math in school, by the time you finished the last problem, you will have the idea down pat. Further each concept is interspersed with a series of reviews from previous books/sections and some really clever ways to get you to think about move types. An example of this is, is there are sections interspersed called opening moves where you play moves, read out the type of the move and repeat. Initially i thought this was a bit needless, but the 11th or so time you do this, you start thinking of stone flow in the way those plays are read out. Lastly there are 3 20 problem quizzes at the end of each book for review, which are useful to verify that you have learned each concept.

I agree with the slow knowledge adoption but its really one of its strengths.. and honestly you can read it at your own speed,. So for example I'm now somewhere in book 8 after about 3 weeks or so. While most of that was review (even now) I definitely got something out of reading them from (mostly an appreciation for how sloppy I am ). Its gotten me to do basic things much more methodically in a manner I wasn't really doing before (counting, reading out, knowing where / when to cut and connect and when not to, in ways I thought I knew but quite honestly did not.)



With all that said the one negative thing is there are mistakes in their answer sections in pretty much every book. These have all been really obvious though, but they really should be fixed.

The other thing I should add is for whatever reason books 11-15 (the jump ones) actually don't have a PDF answer book available but is being sold separately. YMimports (where I ordered these books from as well) doesn't have the answer book and aren't getting new ones for 2-3 months. I didn't realize this when I ordered them from ymimports, and now I am trying to figure out how to order the answer book directly from korea.

-regards
-avi

Btw the other series like this (that I am also super curious about as I go through the level up series) is this one:

http://senseis.xmp.net/?SpeedBadukForBeginners

I think this one will go at a faster pace and is designed for an older audience, but quite honestly its clear these types of books are being adapted from actual course books and it really, really shows.

Speed Baduk is interesting as a series. Level 1 would be fairly easy for most people. Level 10's problems were fairly interesting for some strong EGF sdks that I showed them to. There are some nice problems about connection and how to handle cutting points in your shape that I hadn't seen explicitly done in any English language books up to that point (I still haven't seen the keima shape covered in problem form, see below).

I got a couple "Level Up" books from my local library when I first started playing go. I think that they are good books with a useful format. Even without the answer books I was able to learn a lot from them.

Thanks for all the great feedback. I have now ordered the series + their 4 vol. L&D and Joseki book; Like some of you mentioned I think I need a bit of the old-school slow training to stay on track - my goal is to try raise my game skill to an SDK-worthy level in a year (I started playing a few months ago)

My main concern was that the series, like some of the answer sheets, may be sloppy in the later volumes; The sample pages of the earlier volume seemed good. I did have a look at the review mentioned as well and that strengthened my confidence in the series.

This should be rudimentary enough for me to now study a little every day rather than just on weekends. I have some other good books in my library but was finding it difficult to read anything significantly on weekdays, so was looking for something a bit simple, systematic and structured along the lines of "Graded Go Problems".


The "Speed Baduk" series is another interesting series, but I could not find any detailed reviews, except for some of the scattered comments here on L19.

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Tempus Vincit Omnia

Sooooo...my order finally arrived today and I opened it with all the excitement of a 10-year old...aaaannnndddd..... bummer YMI screwed up the order and just included the 2 review books instead of the 2 combo packs(1-5+R1, 6-10+R2)

Have sent them a disappointed email The L&D vols., Jump Level Up 1-5 & Joseki books look great

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Tempus Vincit Omnia

One time they sent me the entire Go Seigen Kifu boxset instead of one book ; )

@Mage: Where did you end up getting the answer book from for the jump series?

Don't have them yet. I figured I'll get around to reading them only in a couple of months (years ? ) time, so will buy them at a later point. Planning to start with Level Up + printed answer sheets.

In other news YMI has promised to send me the missing 10 books...another week of wait

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Tempus Vincit Omnia

Got my missing books last week by 2-day priority mail from YMI and they very nicely added 2 of their "Go" mouse pads as well for the trouble! Very happy with their response !

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Tempus Vincit Omnia