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 Post subject: Re: First Fundamentals
Post #21 Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 1:39 am 
Oza
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Time wrote:
After reading the first paragraph of the sample you provided, I would never recommend this book to anyone. Less broken english more getting to the point please.
I wonder whether you’d also write such a disgustingrespectful comment if an Asian author wrote a Go book and decided to publish it in less than perfect English.

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Also, let me know when one of the students of your teaching methods become a professional so L19 can award you with a "Greatest Go Teacher Ever" award.
:roll:

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 Post subject: Re: First Fundamentals
Post #22 Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 1:45 am 
Oza
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Anybody wanting to read more about this book from readers please head to this thread: First Fundamentals: First Impressions

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 Post subject: Re: First Fundamentals
Post #23 Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 1:57 am 
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Bonobo wrote:
Time wrote:
After reading the first paragraph of the sample you provided, I would never recommend this book to anyone. Less broken english more getting to the point please.
I wonder whether you’d also write such a disgustingrespectful comment if an Asian author wrote a Go book and decided to publish it in less than perfect English.

No reason to jump the fences. It's fair to point out (and valid imho). If you find such things urksome you might not want to buy the book (and if you do, who wrote the book is irrelevant).

The diagrams seem very well done, from what I can see from the sample pages.

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 Post subject: Re: First Fundamentals
Post #24 Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 2:26 am 
Oza
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p2501 wrote:
Bonobo wrote:
Time wrote:
After reading the first paragraph of the sample you provided, I would never recommend this book to anyone. Less broken english more getting to the point please.
I wonder whether you’d also write such a disgustingrespectful comment if an Asian author wrote a Go book and decided to publish it in less than perfect English.

No reason to jump the fences. It's fair to point out (and valid imho). If you find such things urksome you might not want to buy the book (and if you do, who wrote the book is irrelevant).

The diagrams seem very well done, from what I can see from the sample pages.

I’m not quite sure whom you replied to … (I don’t know whether “jump the fences” is some idiomatic phrase), but FWIW, I recommend the book (at least for people of my current rank).

Greetings, Tom

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 Post subject: Re: First Fundamentals
Post #25 Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2014 1:56 am 
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I've just read this book and thought I'd put my short review on here.

This is a review of the book 'First Fundamentals' by Robert Jasiek.

The aim of this book is to help beginners to become intermediate players in as
little time as possible. It's also helpful for intermediate players that are
still making basic mistakes. It fulfils this goal by organising examples of the
moves beginners make into sections covering each fundamental principle. The
examples also explain why the move/plan is bad. At the end of each section are
some problems for the reader to solve. Usefully the answers follow, rather than
being in the back of the book which does save time by not having to keep
flipping to the back. The sections themselves are prefaced by parables which act
as a metaphor for the underlying concepts. I found them useful as a mnemonic
device and they were a nice interlude between the principles for the mind to
take a breather. The stories themselves I thought were funny, original and well
written. Robert has a good sense of humour (somewhat dry!) which comes across in
these stories as well as in the principles.

This is a very condensed book with a lot of information contained within its
pages. If you're a beginner you'll probably want to read and re-read sections
many times, perhaps concentrating on one area at a time so as not to be
overwhelmed. Once you've read the principles you can just look at the examples
as reminders for the principles which may make further passes quicker to
process. I found I went from looking at the examples in the book to then
finding examples from my own games quite naturally and without conscious effort.
It was just a natural progression and shows that, by learning from both the
principles and their examples, applying them works rather well.

A nice side effect of reading this book has meant that it's made other Go
literature more accessible. I've used this as a reference book to go to when
other books talk about, say, direction of play. Almost like a handbook. Mainly
because other books talk about these ideas but aren't quite so rich with the
examples or overuse of foreign Go terms which the beginner will also be only
just learning.

The diagrams themselves are well presented and clear. I like the fact that
only enough information to show the mistake is given. This keeps the examples as
simple as possible which makes them easier to read and understand.

The actual principles are written concisely, logically, and use consistent
language. This does make the book read like a set of rules and will probably
appeal more to logically minded people.

Various statistics appear throughout the sections. An example being 'Reading
mistakes occur in 80% of every beginner's games, of which most have several
mistakes'. I thought an improvement here would be some way of comparing/ranking
them all together. A surprising statistic for me was how many endgame points are
wasted away in a typical beginner game.

As a book written for beginners it was easy to relate to the examples. The flip
side is that realising why they're mistakes also enables you to punish these
mistakes when made against you by your opponent. Beginners usually try and
find beginner opponents with whom to play! I think at the point where you're
doing this, it's safe to say the book has worked!

I hope this review is of help to people considering buying this book.

Longshanks.


This post by longshanks was liked by 2 people: Bonobo, joellercoaster
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