Hello friends,

does anyone have any ideas or websites to get them?

I think Maeda's three tsumego books are in Japanese only, and I do not know where to buy them.

I bought the pocket life and death book that was published by Slate and Shell before they stopped selling books. https://senseis.xmp.net/?LifeAndDeathIntermediateLevelProblems

You can now find that book on Smartgo's Go Books page if you want to go that route.
https://gobooks.com/books.html

That's about all I know, hope this is of some use.

The 1960s original is out of print.
The 2008 lower quality reprint is out of print.
The Tokyo book shop for used books.
http://www.akasiya-shoten.com/shohin/b000m.htm
Item 3593 前田詰碁集　全３巻揃

That appears to be the 3 volume 2008 lower quality reprint mentioned from:
https://senseis.xmp.net/?MaedaTsumego

Having said that, at 6000 yen, and then shipping on top, is way too much money for what it is, in my opinion.

I got mine from amazon.co.jp a while ago. I like them, but I have to concede that I spend much more time on the TsumeGo Pro app. The Meada books are good and probably even better if you read Japanese, but there are so many sources of problems these days that I can't call it necessary.

I found the Slate and Shell book available here if you want a physical version.
https://www.schachvertrieb.eu/en/life-a ... 12203.html

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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.

Shipping costs aside, I think that 6000 yen is quite reasonable, considering inflation and the original cost of the set. However. . . .



Indeed. Between the Maeda books and a couple of other sources, I worked maybe 100 tsumego problems during my first year of playing go. Nowadays people talk about doing 50 problems a day! OC, there is a plethora of problems available to Asian players, as well. It speaks to the quality of Maeda's books that their price has held up so well.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

The original 2008 price was 4.000 Yen.

_________________
The really most difficult Go problem ever: http://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyoron #120 (still unresolved by professionals, maybe solved by four amateurs)

OIC. Yeah, 5000 is more like it, eh?

Or get your book.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

If it helps make up your mind, it's also worth pointing out that the Maeda problems start squarely in the SDK range and get tricky fast (at 3-4k, my success rate went down to 60% well before the end of volume 1). So if the current rating in your profile of 13k is accurate, you may find that 10% or less of the full set is accessible to you at the moment. (That hasn't stopped me before!)

Please be also well aware that the problems given "difficulty" (starting at 9 Kyu) has nothing to do with Japanese ranks nowadays.

Even European ranks may not be really appropriate, the problems are a bit more advanced than these.

_________________
The really most difficult Go problem ever: http://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyoron #120 (still unresolved by professionals, maybe solved by four amateurs)

It appears that this tsumego collection has been reprinted again in 2019 as a two volume "Revised Edition."
http://www.tsogen.co.jp/np/author/794

改訂版　前田詰碁〈下〉
改訂版　前田詰碁〈上〉
I believe that 下 is "lower" and 上 is "upper."
Update: In this context, perhaps 上 means "Volume 1" and 下 means "Volume 2 or 2," per Richard Hunter's "Just Enough Japanese 2."

The description for each of these books by the published is (machine-translated): "This is a revised version of the famous books "Maeda Beginner Tsumego", "Maeda Intermediate Tsumego", and "Maeda Advanced Tsumego". For that matter, the prior reprint in a three book set is described as a "book that divides the well-established "Maeda Tsumego" into three volumes, beginner, intermediate, and advanced." This begs me to question what the original order of the problems was.

These two books may be purchased from Amazon JP. Shipping is affordable and fast using DHL. Surprisingly fast in some cases.

As with many go things if you want something and you can afford it, buy it, because it may not be available later. I bought the Maeda three volume set published by Tokyo Sogensha in the mid 1960's. As I recall the total price for the three volumes was around 950 yen, when a US dollar was equal to 250 Japanese yen. I think these are great books. As was pointed out above, the stated ranks for the problems are much stronger than current Japanese ranks. The first problems in the "beginner" level book are ranked as around 10k but would be AGA strong single digit kyu problems. In my opinion you would be better off not being able to read the comments with the problems, which contain hints such as " think about under-the-stones" which is quite a big hint.

I've seen this sort of discussion about grades and books before, for these books and others, and I've always found the psychology of some readers a bit strange.

Their basic attitude seems to be: this problem has a label 5-kyu; if I can do it I must be 5-kyu. There are indeed books that offer that kind of enticement, and they may be valuable, but I don't think it's normal, and I'm pretty sure it's not what Maeda intended.

First of all, he said his problems were FOR a certain grade of player E.g. Vol. 1: 10級から4級までの人に. It is the player who is of that grade (before reading the book), not the problem. If you can do the problems WITH Maeda's help (i.e. the hints - he is teaching thought patterns more than moves), you are on the road to becoming stronger by virtue of having done something challenging. He made this plain in his introductions and many articles on tsumego (up to around the 60s - Maeda's book first came out in 1965 - there was a plethora of such articles by various top players. In many cases the discussions centred round what made a good problem, and another popular topic was the "rules" of tsumego (e.g. seki counts as life), and Maeda actually covers these in his books. What was always conspicuously absent in these articles was the notion of "I can do this so must be N-dan). Players were more concerned with explaining how you can appreciate and enjoy the opera rather than how to pass your Grade 8 music exam. There seems to me still to be value in that approach, even in our utilitarian age.



Maeda says specifically that the problems are not given in order of difficulty. If you think of then in terms of thought patterns you'll get a different perspective, though of course that does mean reading the text.

I'm just following up because I received my copy of the revised 2 volume edition.

The 3 volume set contains 225 problems, 210 problems, and 150 problems with 156 pages per volume.
The 2 volume set contains 344 problems in 236 pages and 230 problems in 216 pages.

I don't actually read Japanese but a translation of the preamble in volume 1 tried to explain the changes. Seems like some problems and/or solutions were removed and the diagram notation was changed.




This shows the dust jacket on and off. The revised books don't come in a box but the actual paperbacks themselves seem to be fairly similar to those in the 3-volume set.



The ink does show through the paper but not as bad as in the photo. My camera automatically increased the contrast.