I don't see it recommended very often, but "The 1971 Honinbo Tournament" is a very good Go book both for the commentaries and for the story it crafts.

_________________
We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

"Positional Judgment High Speed Game Analysis" by Cho Chikun is a favorite of mine.

Ah, what the heck. Buy whatever you can get your hands on.

_________________
Patience, grasshopper.

Heh, that’s what I’m doing. Found out that I can’t read Go books for too long … and for that: I also can’t read in one Go book for too long, seems I get sort of worn up. So at all times there are several Go books I read parallel, often with long pauses in between where I need to read other things. (BTW just got all books by Trevanian after I thoroughly enjoyed his “Shibumi”, bought them used and extremely cheap via http://www.booklooker.de)

Admin: Although not intrusive, it is still advertisement and not exactly go related. Just a friendly notice.

_________________
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

I've just ordered this book yesterday because I think my positional judgement is totaly off.
Lots of times I think I'm way behind when I'm actualy well ahead which leads me to playing to risky for no reason. I hope this book will make me fix my judgement. Also I hope it will help me count the value of thickness and moyo better. Good to see that it is your favorite

Cheers,
Otenki

In that case, you should read also the most detailed and accurate treatise on the subject, my book Positional Judgement 1 Territory.



Neither Cho's book nor my volume 1 discuss the influence value of thickness. Volume 1 explains the territorial value of moyos, but does not explain their influence value. (Needless to say, the related missing topics will be in volume 2.) So far, Joseki 2 Strategy and Joseki 3 Dictionary are available for at least a short discussion of values and degrees of influence, thickness, mobility difference, usefulness difference and influence stone difference.

Further topics to be considered for positional judgement include aji, options, available development directions and strategic choices, but I do not know of any books yet that would well relate those topics to systematic positional judgement.

Personally, I don't think this forum should be used for blatant self-promotion. Certainly not this thread, anyway.

Robert, sorry if you believe your books are not appreciated.

_________________
- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

Books are underappreciated for mainly two reasons:

1) Other books exist for a long time, many people have had a chance to read them, so there are also a few (in case of particularly good old books, quite a few) praising them. While there is nothing wrong with that in itself, it has the side effect that newer books are relatively underappreciated simply because the number of their readers is still much smaller.

2) Hard to get books are underappreciated regardless of their quality. E.g., the very good problem book Kansufu is scarce in Western countries.

Just mentioning particular underappreciated books is little help for deciding well which books to read. Reviewing them or comparing them to other books with related contents is more helpful.

Therefore, let me point out that Kansufu belongs to the classics. The problems are 5k to 7d level, usually 3d to 5d. One can see Kansufu as an endgame book, because all problems are also about finding the best endgame sequence. However, it is not about values, but about reading, tesuji, tesuji techniques, life+death and tsumego. The collection is easier (eh, less difficult) than Hatsuyoron and Gengen Gokyo, but more difficult than other classics or mid 20th century problem books with sorting by tesuji type. If you want to get Kansufu, ensure to buy a reasonably complete edition. It will keep you busy for months.

In this case, RJ answered the quote with relevant info. He just happens to be the author of the books he recommended in reply to what someone asked. He didn't post a link to the books but only relating them to relevant topics. And his books may in some people's opinion be considered "underappreciated". So I think it is allowable as it stands on this thread.



If say, Cho Chikun came along and started to tell people to read his book on positional judgement as a reply to the same quote as did RJ, would people think of this as unacceptable and against forum rules?

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

Does anyone else knows anything about the 'Kansufu'-book Robert talks about? He unfortunately is not able to photograph it.

Could someone make pictures of the front and back? Or give me a number or exact title (in japanese / chinese), author and publisher?

Thanks in advance!

edit: Robert opened a seperate thread here: viewtopic.php?f=17&p=134809

Ok, tchan, seems reasonable to me.

<stands in corner>

_________________
- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders