I'm reading "In The Beginning" again. I think I last read it fully ten kyus ago.

I remember a very difficult book, full of axioms which meant very little to me. It was painfully hard to understand, a lot of it was full of what seemed pure opinion without anything to back it up.

I'm reading a completely different book, now. It's helpful, clear and offers a well-structured overview of the opening.

It's exactly the same stack of paper, there's someone else reading it now, though.

Does anyone else get this? It seems so extreme. I was starting to think I had read another book, but I don't have any other which covers the opening like this.

Yep. I get this with most books I read a few years ago

By the time you understand a book you're strong enough to not need it anymore

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Sanity is for the weak.

I would even be bold enough to say that this only holds for bad books. Good books will help you understand new things and concepts, while a bad book will only tell you a move at A is better than B without giving any reason.

Of course my definition of 'bad' is limited to books teaching concepts (for exaple books on the opening). I'm by no means claiming for example dictionaries to be bad in that sense. Oh well, I guess you know what I mean. And of course I also understand what you really mean, Li Kao, and I also think that's true

I think in the case of this specific book, it's more that they're trying not to clutter things up.

Sometimes you have that guy at a lecture who keeps asking about follow-up sequences that he imagines are interesting, while the lecturer is trying to provide an overview of a specific part of the game. It muddies the explanation to keep getting bogged down like that, and people who were trying to learn something new are just confused by it.

How much you should be specific about though ... that's a conscious choice for what level you aim at.

Back when I read it for the first time, I didn't understand most of it, but I got a little bit better and felt less lost. Now I understand it, and will get better and feel less lost.

I think I gained two stones when I read this book the first time, after stealing it from a friend to peruse while waiting to be called for jury duty. I made it 2/3s of the way through before they sent me home, and really enjoyed it. For the next month, I occasionally picked it up at a random page and read a little, to skim it a bit more.

The next time I opened the book, a few months later, I could not seem to find what had enthralled me so much. By this, I do not mean that the book was bad, or my memory imperfect. I mean that I had been working so hard on applying the ideas I had learned in it, that everything I read seemed so commonsense and clear. I would think to myself, "Of COURSE getting a base is what white has to do here," and so on. While I may have learned most of the lessons the book tries to teach, I love that book and would recommend it highly to anyone who wants to improve their opening foundations.

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

"In the Beginning" was my first go book, and I got it around 18k/22k (KGS/EGF). At that time I got much out of it and maybe I improved two stones. A few months ago I had a look at it again and found many things that I hadn't understood/realized before. These things are indeed valuable, but I think they are explained better in "Attack and Defense".

Well, that was one enlightening read.

Did better (but not well) with the problems at the end, and the explanations made more sense to me than last time.

I wonder what it'll be like to read this after a few dans (one of these days...)

my suggestion:
if you dont understand....
memorize!

it might sound not helpful just to memorize but....it will help you if you do many problems such way.

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"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

This is more or less what I need. More data to put statements about the opening into context.

I don't think I can learn that way: Filling my head with patterns in the hope to reproduce them some time.
But following this discussion I reread the book. Earlier I didn't like the book too much but now I am impressed by its thoroughness. It really helps me to think about the opening. It didn't help me to get a very good score at the problems though, so I'll try to memorize and try again in two month's time.
Question: Some answers he grades 10 points other 5 points and so on. Would you think the value of these answers differs also about 5 points in real games?

I would definitely not associate the score values with how many points they make a difference. It's more to say that 5 points is for a so-so move which is really not very good, while 10 is for a perfect move. The perfect move in these problems seems worth a lot more than 10 points.

I too like "In the Beginning". I have a question: in the chapter of 3x4 point opening, the author states that kakari move is just as valuable as the shimari it prevents. Is that so in all cases? It sounds like a very useful principle to think about what you'd like to play as your opponent. In the chinese opening a play at "a" works with the black stone in center right. However, black's intention is to let white approach. Counter-move to chinese is triangle stone, which will negate the strategic implication of approach move. I would play black "a" here and, utilizing the principle that kakari is worth the same as shimari it prevents, correct invasion move is "a" for white instead of "b".

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c Chinese opening for black
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . Q . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a b . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

My database has 23 pro games with this position, with the following breakdown:
a - 16
b - 4
c,d,e - 1

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c Chinese opening for black
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . Q . e . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . b a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . c . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

The enclosure you mention was never played. Seems like in this situation, the approach in the lower left is the biggest move.

- I meant local context. Perhaps the diagram was misleading. Approaching lower left corner is biggest, since it's imbalanced corner and it doesn't have reinforcement, unlike top right. Using too many moves on one part of the board in opening is inefficient.