A new series, the first book on tsumego has just been released, written by Valery Shikshin.

Details: http://gogameguru.com/6-new-go-books/

The first book looks very interesting, I don't know its level, usable by mid sdk at worst would be my guess. I think I'll pick it up, just the theory section on tsumego types alone would be interesting enough for me to buy it.

I got my copy a couple of days ago and I'm enjoying reading it so far. It would be premature for me to write a detailed review but so far its more focused on the types of moves (reduce eye space, vital point placement etc) than encyclopedic review of standard shapes, which complements the books I already have (life and death and all about life and death). The Russian Go culture info is also very interesting.

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I am John. John-I-Am.

Oh and its quite systematic in its approach rather than what I expected from the description on Go Game Guru

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I am John. John-I-Am.

What is its major system / structure? For which ranks might it be interesting or which maximal level can a reader have and still learn something? Is there a sample and a TOC? How much theory is there in relation to the practice of examples / problems?

Well here's the toc. I assume there's no issues with posting it. Generally for each technique, such as under the stones, there are a couple of worked examples problems which demonstrate the technique. That seems to be the general approach anyway.
The level? Well ddk - sdk? Whoever thinks it would be useful. As for optimum rank, again that depends on the player I would have thought. Much of what I've read so far (the first 90 pages) hasn't been new to me but its the difference between knowing something and knowing it well (and applying the techniques 4-5 moves into a sequence I'm reading out that I'm interested in.

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I am John. John-I-Am.

Thank you! Seeing the TOC, for the sake of deciding whether to buy the book, a few more hints on the theory would be very helpful for the sections

- Of, e.g., which kind is the theory of tsumego in the corner? Something like "The edges can cause a reduced number of approach liberties."?
- What, in the author's view, is (an example of) a "model" of an eye shape in the corner?
- What, in the author's view, is (an example of) a method of making life for a group? Something like "enlarge the eyespace"? How sophisticated does it become? Maybe up to various multiple threats of different basic methods?
- What is the general theory of ko about? Something like "Count ko threats before starting a ko fight." or "If possible, capture first."?

Let me echo Robert's sentiments.

It is nice to see a tsumego book that offers theory. But that does not say a lot. Some examples would help.

For example, there is certainly theory to semeai, but Richard Hunter, Martin Mueller, and Nakamura Teigo all have different approaches.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Thanks, I didn't think anyone could complain about making the TOC available (as it should be) however I don't really feel its my right to make any of the contents available. David from Go Game Guru, in the announcement said he considered scanning some pages but didn't want to squash the pages, so perhaps he'd be willing to comment if you get in touch. I do think its more useful as a guide to playing than adding to the Go theory corpus.

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I am John. John-I-Am.

Look up Fair Use.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Yup, scanning a few pages (especially if they are non-consecutive) and putting them up is perfectly acceptable if your purpose is to demonstrate a sample of the contents of a book. There are defined percentages for how much you can copy but these vary jurisdiction to jurisdiction I think from purpose to purpose. It works fairly similarly to how I can quote a passage from any go book I like and put it up here to show something but if I put up an entire chapter it might be illegal (I think you can do this in an academic context for teaching purposes in Ireland but I'm not 100% sure) and if I put up the entire book it's definitely illegal.

1) Scanning TOC: I do not know the legal side, but any publisher should simply publish the TOC to advertise for his own book:)

2) Citations up to reasonable (short) lengths are legal!

3) Non-citation contents descriptions in other words and if maintaining a reasonable (short) amount are legal! E.g., reviews are legal...!

So, CnP, it is perfectly legal if you answer my questions! (And I have restricted my curiosity so that it becomes particularly easy for you to stay legal when providing a bit more information.)

Hello Robert, my copy arrived today so I'll try and answer your questions:

1) The theory of the corner is along the lines of "A border of four stones is dead", "Five stones dies or lives depending on who goes next" and "Six stone borders are alive." Hanes on the first line reduce the number of stones in the border for this purpose by one.

2) A model is not defined. The author refers readers to books like Davies' Life and Death and Cho Chikun's All about Life and Death for this. He does systematically go through various corner shapes and how to kill/live with them. He explicitly states he does not want to analyse all corner shapes, rather he wants to analyse all living/killing techniques in the corner in a few different contexts.

3) He lists 8 techniques. Increasing eyespace, playing at the critical point, protecting a weakness in your shape, sacrificing stones, capturing stones, playing under the stones, (as one group, preventing the formation of a dead shape by crushing and forcing a connect and die sequence) and using outside stones (i.e. stones not connected to your group). He then gives a few examples of each, often combining techniques so one of the increasing eye space examples has you sacrificing two stones and another example has you forcing a connect-and-die sequence. It may become more involved further into the book but the focus seems to be on drilling the concepts rather than purely theoretical concerns here.

4) The general theory of ko breaks kos into three types. Direct, Indirect and Double. Indirect and Double have fairly standard divisions, e.g. approach move kos and two stage kos are treated differently. The Direct ko divisions I hadn't seen before but were intuitive to me, Basic (e.g. a simple ko on the edge in yose with little to either player), "Flower Viewing" a ko which is low risk for one player but high risk for the other and "All-Dominating" a ko in the opening which is at least 30-40 points worth (no ko threats in the opening and all that). The ko theory seems to focus on things like: a direct ko is preferable to an indirect ko, if you have to create an indirect ko a two stage ko is better than an approach move ko and a thousand year ko is better than a two stage ko and similar. The advice for "Flower Viewing" kos is, where the ko is your privilege, stock up on ko threats first. The advice for finding kos is to find kos that maximise the number of local ko threats for you with respect to either killing or saving the group. There's no advice like "Count ko threats," I think this kind of thing is assumed to be known by the reader.


Overall, my initial impressions are the book is worth the cost. It's a lot more readable than Life and Death by Davies but it isn't a replacement for it. It does try and teach killing and living techniques as part of a rough theoretical framework but I don't really see it as a purely theoretical book. It seems to me to be more of an applied theory book for the purposes of teaching, it reminds me more of a college level science textbook than a paper in a scientific journal (and just like in science we need both in go). I'm slightly disappointed by the number of problems at the back of the book, there are 10 kyu problems from 10k to 1k, and 35 Dan level problems from 1d to 7d. But then this is not a problem book and I didn't buy it expecting it to be one, so I'm not complaining.

There are some spelling errors and some of the translation is poor, it's clear the translator isn't a native speaker of English, e.g "big handicapped games against stronger players." Nothing that would stop one from understanding a sentence though. I think the most amusing part for me was the Introduction which talked a lot about European Championships and then about how this new English edition would benefit American readers and how now both Russian and American go players could enjoy this book.

I missed this question last night. I can't talk about players substantially stronger than me. I can see corner and side shapes in the book that I'd have great difficulty reading out in a game but these could easily be strong kyu level rather than dan level. Given the problems given at the end, I'd guess it's meant to be interesting to dan players but I can't guarantee that. Players weaker than me, well the first chapter would be accessible to a 20 kyu easily. But it's just dealing with nakade and such and you can find this information for free on Sensei's Library and elsewhere. Depending on your reading level the later chapters may or may not be useful to you as a ddk but I think it'd strongly depend on your learning style, are you the kind of person who needs thing explicitly explained to them "hane to reduce eyespace or playing at the critical point(s) are good places to start reading" or would you be better off just doing problems until sdk and then looking at the theory and having it confirm the instincts you've already developed. Personally I'd say skip it until 10k and at 10k there will be plenty of material in it you won't be able to do, unless you are a bit obsessive about tsumego and think you might find the theory interesting for its own sake.