Where is your source for this? Snapback as a go term is even in Kenkyusha, at least since 1974. And futokoro is in the Go Almanac. Both books in English.

For oi-otoshi 'connect-and-die' seems well established among English speakers.

SoDesuNe, without knowing such terms or having seen related examples, players do not think about the good moves related to the techniques. E.g., IIRC, I learnt about approach blocks and internal liberty shortages only as a 3 dan. As a kyu player, I had no idea of their existence, because the English literature had no names for them and problem books for kyus did not show (enough) related examples.

This is a severe contrast to the importance of these techniques. A noteworthy percentage of problems involves variations with them. IOW, they are basic techniques, which are better learnt early rather than late.

John, during the ICOB 2001, IIRC Charles Matthews gave a speech about the history of English go terms, and he mentioned that Davies was the one to invent 'snapback'. I cannot verify this, but this is where I got the information from.

EDIT: connect-and-die I saw today for the first time on Sensei's. Maybe it is well established in the UK?:)

Re: oi-otoshi

First, I didn’t find “oi-otoshi” was hard to remember—quite the contrary: after reading it for the first time, I never forgot it.

Then, aside from the onomatopoetic and funny “bata-bata” that sometimes seems to be used colloquially, why not simply call it “Connect and lose even more”? Five words that say it all, that’s how I explain it to my Go kids, and nobody has ever needed more explanation.

Greetz, Tom

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"Connect and lose even more" or "series of ataris" are descriptive, but are not easily recognised as terms, because these phrases can occur also with other meanings (such as using a series of ataris as forcing moves before doing something else). "liberty shortage" is more specific and encourages the idea of the fate self-atari / cannot-escape-from-atari or suicide.

We just say "connect and die". It's not precise but no one seems to be confused by it.

I have become curious how often this verb is used (in)transitively in the book. So here are the statistics of occurrences of the verb 'reduce' in the book:

* 14 occurrences of transitive use. ("reduces the eyespace")
* 10 occurrences of directional use, the object is unambiguously given in the same sentence or the described diagram(s). ("reduce from the outside")
* 6 occurrences of intransitive use, the object is unambiguously given in the same sentence or the described diagram(s). ("Black reduces and creates a nakade.")
* 0 other intransitive use.

Robert, you do not recall correctly. "Snapback", IIRC, is a term from financial markets. I don't know who first applied it to go.

Charles, you do not recall correctly. I can't find "Snapback" on any of the online financial dictionaries I have looked up so far. Even this financial glossary which is billed as the biggest on the internet with over 8,000 entries. Nor is it defined as a financial terms on Wikipedia.

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A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

Merriam webster gives (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/snapback)

1: a football snap
2: a sudden rebound or recovery <a snapback of prices on the stock exchange>

Thanks HH, but that is using a financial situation to explain the term "snapback" rather than showing "snapback" as being a financial term in and of itself.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

A paid-for review is potentially just as biased as one posted by the author himself.

Seriously, I find the title of this thread bizarre. Nobody can objectively review their own book, and nobody should lend such a review any credence whatsoever.

Fortunately, if the title were to change to "Life and Death Problems 1 - Summary" that would mostly solve the problem. Most of the content truly is a summary of the book, rather than a critical review. The only subjective parts that I would remove are:


And I don't even know what those last three mean.

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It is not a summary. Maybe, if you dislike "review", a "description of intermediate length".

A self-review is not necessarily objective, and a review is not necessarily objective, either. Among the many reviews of go books I have seen, I do not recall one that would qualify as objective. I think so, because every reviewer makes a choice of what he does or does not discuss and how he evaluates those things he discusses, while he does not provide an objective framework for such evaluation.

The ratings are explained here:
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/isbn.html

***

Regardless of the degree of subjectivity or objectivity of a review or self-review, reviews are open: each of their statements can be read, discussed, compared and possibly evaluated.

@tchan: I was not trying to correct you, I just posted the dictionary definition because I thought it would be useful to the conversation.

Merriam-Webster also has the example: <the doctor predicted a quick snapback for the rugged young soldier>