I'm Ruben Berenguel, currently "3k?" on KGS and 1176 GoR EGF (I will enter my next tournament in February as 8k, though.) I offered myself as a reviewer for two books by Robert (
Fighting Fundamentals and
Positional Judgement,) since these are my weakest areas. Case in point, 2 days ago I wasn't sure if I was winning or losing a KGS game. I was ~30 points ahead. The same has also happened many times in reverse, and my go teachers have always pointed at my lack of attacking many times.
Disclaimer: I'll do my best to portrait the book in a subjective way (that's inevitable) but one that forgets that I didn't pay for the books. To ease my mind for that, I asked Robert to pay for shipping, so I didn't get the books completely for free.
Since the review is pretty long I want to give you a glimpse of its order:
1. Stuff that I worry about but is non-go related (typography, shipping, physical appearance)
2. How the book develops, reads and works
3. What I think now I have finished it
4. TL;DR
You can skip to 2 or 3 if you like, I won't bother
If you are absolutely lazy, go for 4.
Also, if you think I missed something or are interested in some aspect of the book, please ask and I'll update the review.1. The odd stuff I worry aboutShipping: I got the book exactly 7 days after Robert told me he had shipped it. Since Spanish post is not specially effective, I think it would be faster for other European countries. The book was shipped through air mail. The book was neatly wrapped in bubble wrap, inside a bubble envelope, wrapped in bubble wrap inside an Air Post envelope. Probably not very good for the environment, but I love having my books in perfect shape. Such great handling resulted in a book without dog-ears or scratches, always appreciated on my side (The Book Depository could learn something here...)
Physical appearance: The book is 1.4 cm x 15 cm x 21 cm. Of course this doesn't make much sense... To give a physical comparison, it is exactly the same height and depth as
Get Strong at Joseki 1 (and probably any book from the Get Strong series.) It's thicker than GSAJ1, though. As for color, it is yellow (a darker, more orange side of the yellow in
Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go or
Tesuji) with a green (similar to the green in
Master Play: The Style of Lee Chang-Ho) spine. It has a weird flower-like on the cover. Overall, it is a book that feels good at hand, with very good binding and printing. The paper is significantly more white than the paper in GSAJ1 (my copy is ~1.5 years old, but I have read it too little for it to matter.)
Typography et al: I was pleasantly surprised by the PDF version. The only books I have in PDF form are Jonathan Hop's So
You Want to Play Go? series, where the font, typesetting and diagrams are well, not specially good. I have also checked the previews of Kiseido books on PDF, and they are also far, far worse. The PDF reads very well on an iPad, in the sense that there is very little margin overhead. I read half the book in PDF and the other half with the physical book to check it as thoroughly as possible. The book has also many, many diagrams, but I'll cover this in the go part of the review.
2. How the book is structured, etcWho can read the book? My personal oppinion is that a 12-13k EGF can easily read the book and get a lot of new/interesting knowledge (that's 3 stones weaker than me, roughly.) Of course, weaker players will get also a lot, but I think some reading ability or ability to follow diagrams quickly is needed, so 12k looks like a good target. I can't be sure of the rank ceiling, but I am very sure I will be re-reading this book many times in the (near) future.
Structure, etc If you check the book's table of contents you'll feel the book is almost like a huge list of techniques, aims, methods and whatnot. I won't claim it is not: it more or less is. But as soon as I started reading it, it stopped feeling like a list. It was surprisingly engaging, and I read it in around 7 days. Which is quite fast for a ~255 pages go book!
All chapters are structured in a similar way. The theme is introduced, for example "Types of Fights" with the several types in a few lines and some problems to think about, as a kind of pre-focus-sharpening. Then for each defined type the theory for this concept is developed, together with relevant references to previous or posterior sections and accompanied by anything from 2-6 examples (Robert has an exhaustive list of the number of examples in each section, I just picked the numbers I could clearly remember: I think no section had less than 2 examples, and somehow more than 6 in my head is just "6".)
I know, it sounds boring and monotonous. I don't know if it is the subject or the examples, but as I said above, the book read very well and got me very engaged until the last chapter, when I lost a little steam.
Even though Robert is German, I didn't feel his English had any weird aspect. The book read very well, with relatively short phrases (usually!) and a clear-cut use of the language. Since I'm also a non-native English speaker I can't comment much more than that the book read very well.
Examples in chapters The examples in each section deserve more detail, though. All examples are taken from pro-pro play (from the GoGoD database), or in some rare occasions high dan-high dan play (from memory, all games are amateur games from the World Amateur Tournament and Japanese Amateur tournaments). In most go theory books, examples are just examples. Attack from a distance (in
Attack and Defense)? Yes, makes sense, and this example looks neat. In
Fighting Fundamentals examples not only cover the expected sequence, but also what would happen with another line of play. So if a section covers
Invasion, and the pro/high dan player invaded, it was because he needed the thickness/territory or whatever his/her aim was. But in most books you are left wondering "what happens when the player just reduces/settles his territory?" All these alternate realities are covered in most examples, showing all these "what if" scenarios.
Not only that, but in some (I could find the pages for 2, I think it happened with 3) examples I found myself wondering "What if black/white defends this sequence doing this?" and then the next diagram covered
exactly this sequence, with a short explanation of why it was bad/not optimal. This got me genuinely impressed with the structure of the diagrams, as you can imagine!
Since most examples are in GoGoD I could easily grab SmartGo Pro and see interesting games. This happens in most books, but since in Fightinh Fundamentals the games include year, month and day they are very easy to find. It's always handy.
Diagrams Most diagrams cover half-boards where the action is taking place, and if needed the diagram caption covers "outside" thickness or territory. I found this way of diagramming refreshing: more diagrams could be crammed in less area, but it wasn't actually overwhelming. If only a minor issue is that in ~30% of the examples the description text was in the previous page, so you had to either first read the description and remember it or give a look at the example and go back. This was only bothershome with the PDF version, but of course there is no way to solve this without creating separate versions for print and screen. It was a very minor annoyance, and the printed version was easier to handle in this regard.
3. What I think now I have finished itFirst, I didn't expect that I'd like the book so much. I thought it may cover interesting topics in a dry way, but I was very surprised to find
Fighting Fundamentals very engaging.
Robert, in his self-review gives it a "++" in subjective rank improvement (a "very good".) I think this depends on what type of player you are. In my case, knowing what to do and what I'm doing are usually not aligned, and FF will definitely help me overcome some mental barriers. So I think I can agree to rate it as "very good." But some other players have a clear sense of what they are doing and why, so for them I think the book would classify as "just" good, since it will greatly improve their knowledge of all the different aims, methods and techniques.
He also classifies the subject coverage as "o" which is average. I disagree: I think the coverage of the subject deserves at least a "+". Not only did I like the content, I also found that most of the things in the book are not explained anywhere else.
Attack and Defense is the closest book in scope and subject, and although it explains a lot of things, you get to eventually "know everything." I have read A&D at least 4 or 5 times, and even though every re-read gave me something new, the contents of FF added a new dimension to my knowledge of fighting.
I'll probably need several re-reads to get the most of Fighting Fundamentals, and also work hard to apply the concepts explained within. One idea I have is to frame middle game fighting in pro games I check (or dan games in KGS) using the concepts from the book.
4. TL;DR:I found
Fighting Fundamentals very interesting. Good subject coverage, interesting and complete examples, good structure and (indeed!) fluid prose. I found no complaints or issues with the book, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone looking to improve his middle game strategy and knowledge.
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RBerenguel
