I'm wondering if anyone has some sample content of John Fairbairn's new publication of the Shikatsu Myoki? I'm particularly curious about how he edited and organized the material. Some time ago I considered working on an English version of this book, but there were already good versions in the Asian languages. Thus, to avoid stepping on copyright issues by just publishing the same solutions in the same organization I would have had to artificially change a few diagrams, artificially mix it up, and throw in a few words to make it appear different enough. But that felt insincere and inappropriate. The other direction would have been to ask permission from the original author(s)/publisher(s) to basically reprint it in English (providing them royalties and so on). So I'm wondering how he did it. Usually he has some sources or notes about the texts he used. Thank-you.

http://gobooks.com/books.html
https://www.usgo.org/news/2014/04/new-offerings-from-smartgo-books-plus-add-your-own-notes/

JF translated the original 1910 edition.

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Here are the first two problems from the book.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Thanks Bill. If you have the time, could you please post problem 80? It should look like this:

A large number of the problems in the original collection have their solutions cut short from limited spacing. So the full solutions and failures would have had to come from somewhere else. The problem 80 solution is incorrect in at least some Asian versions (I don't have them all).

Problem 80.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Thank-you for your time Bill, I appreciate it.

Problem 80 is incorrect, it should be a ko (see following). IIRC it was the only problem in the Living section of the book that was a ko, so may have been better placed in the Ko section.
From the book examples here, the book appears to be a modified translation, because I don't recall there being failure diagrams in the original. For example, here is a scan of problem one (and two) from a later printing of the original at the Japanese National Diet Library:
So just a fair warning for those wanting to seriously study the collection with this version: there will be some wrong or incomplete solutions. Also, the organization may not be optimal.

Am I the only one to find this thread extraordinarily snide? Lots of innuendo, wrong assumptions, errors...

First, the book description and introduction make it plain that the book is an edited translation - and why it was presented the way it was. Buy it to find out the background.

Second, as it's a translation, I follow the original layout anyway.

Third, failure lines are introduced only four or five times as part of the editing process, and are marked as not being part of Shusai's version.

Fourth, there is no Living section or Ko section in the original.

Fifth, the examples given here by Bill are not from the SmartGo book.

Sixth, logan ignores the standard tsumego convention that game-deciding kos (and approach kos) are usually classed as won by the player who gets to capture the ko. (Just as ladders are always assumed to work.) I discuss this also in GTAM.

Seventh, there is a major error in the blue marks in the Show portion above. The portion marked B/W to play actually says "White to play and live". The point is that Black would not risk losing everything for a ko he can't win, but would let White live and would take life himself in the corner. Shusai's wording implies that.

Eighth, where is the evidence that there are shortcomings in Shusai's other solutions?

Ninth, since "optimal organisation" is mentioned (and I don't accept that grouping by Ko or Life etc is necessarily optimal), it should be mentioned that the present SmartGo version has the merit of being partly interactive, and you might say you can't get much more optimal than that at present.

...

And twenty-ninthly,

Sorry for any misunderstanding. By "the book" I meant the original. I do not have the e-book. I am the one who translated myou as exquisite.



You will note that that page says for each problem that there is a variation on the next page. Those are the variations that I included in the SGF files.

Edit: Besides, now that I check, they are not failure diagrams.



To be clear, if you have any objection, aside from the translation of myou, with what I posted, take it up with Shusai.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

John, I am sorry for any confusion about that.



Right. While it is conceivable that, in a real game, Black would have enough sufficiently large ko threats to opt for the approach ko, the tsumego convention is that the board is otherwise empty. This follows the general principle, not just in tsumego, that everything that is relevant is shown.

Edit: I worked on the position a bit, and, as far as I can tell, even if Black can win the approach ko, he will normally do better to opt for live-live.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

No problem Bill, thanks for clearing that up. Although I am a bit confused why you posted it then But, whatever

Only some of the problems have variations. (I would actually classify them as sub-problems.) But John said that he added failure diagrams, so it's all the same.


Yes, John you might be. I'm sorry you interpreted the posts so negatively.

Actually, I was expecting this sort of post soon enough. You become very emotional and aggressively riposte whenever anything critical is said about your books. You then start attributing the most negative emotions and intent to any such post you're replying too. This tends to 'scare' a lot of people off from making any critical questions or comments about your work. But truthfully, I don't care.

Unlike you, I'm not going to nitpick your post. I hope you can guess why.

The fact remains: you chose to publish this book in the manner that you wanted -- and that's great! I'm very happy for you. But also, because of that there will be inherent advantages and disadvantages. Again, there's nothing wrong with that. There's simply a better version of this book waiting to be published. I stand by the concluding sentence I wrote in my previous post; and I think that the few people who are interesed in serious study of these problems -- because it is a high-level collection -- will enjoy the more thorough and numerous variations and re-organized take in some of the Asian editions.

P.S. It's also silly to expect anyone to buy a book just to browse the introduction/references.

This is a huge can of worms and another issue. I won't get into this common argument. But with regards to Shusai's book there are a few things to mull over:

1. Shusai pulls no punches when giving Black's maximum resistance in other problems. He uses the final solutions as the basis for titling the problem as "Black to play," "White to play for ko," "Black to play for ko to live," etc. But in this problem he ignores this for the so-called, "game-deciding ko" convention.

2. Most kos in the book are game-deciding. There's no choice but to ignore any ko threat and take them. Shusai doesn't avoid the strongest resistance in these problems.

3. Shusai doesn't retitle or give the mainline variation as how Black or White should play in a real game.

4. One player is clearly winning before most of these problems even begin.

5. Problem 103 is a particularly interesting case of a game-deciding ko where Black captures the ko first and White cannot win the ko, yet it's titled, "Black to play for ko."

I used to think this. But after looking through so many endgame books, I now don't believe this any longer. (If you don't put who's ahead on ko threats in an endgame problem, then there's going to be a lot of problems.)

Well, you asked. Besides, I would think that a prospective buyer of the book might want to get an idea of the type and difficulty of the problems.

True, you were particularly interested in John's editing. But I would have been greatly surprised had he altered the actual problems and answers, unless mistakes had been discovered, which I doubted for the problems I showed.


The conventions of modern tsumego do not seem to be the same as for older problems. In particular, the division into unconditional life, unconditional death, and ko, seems to be modern. For problem 80 Shusai simply says, White first life. Unconditional life it is not, but it is life for all practical purposes. Also, the approach ko is hardly something that one would expect Shusai to have overlooked, or his rivals at the time, or his students. I do not know how much we can infer from the fact that he stops after , but if he had continued with the Black atari at O-19, we would have a stronger case that he had ignored the Black atari at R-19.

Here is problem 6, where Shusai says, White first ko death. The ko fight and local ko threats are integral to the problem. IMX, I have not seen this kind of tsumego in recently composed books. But it still accords with the principle of showing everything that is relevant.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Not sure if this was a rhetorical question but no I don't find it snide since it seems perfectly natural to compare your book with others versions that are available and Logan's criticisms are clearly stated.

Well i agree with John. It came across as kind of snide to me, followed by a helping of arrogance.

If Logan feels the need to criticize the book, he can at least read it first. I think such comments as



are audacious to say the least.

I think Paying $10 first, and then reading the book and then coming back with your views would be best. (or don't give your views.)

If you feel you wont learn anything from the book then that is all well and good, however judging someones work without due diligence is a bit rich.

Reviews from sample pages are hardly worth a dime.

Meanwhile John continues to contribute valuable content for the community.

While comments like

I think anyone would take it personally when someone is pulling apart something they poured endless hours into when they haven't even read it.


I might not win friends with my position on this and frankly i dont care. I will say i do think John deserves respect for his work. Now whether there has been previous bad blood or grievances held by anyone here personally i dont know but i dont think that is for us to go into publicly. I am sure any of the questions you had could have been addressed by John directly.

I was wary of chiming in, but, well, whatever. Not everyone can afford (or is just willing to get) an iPad or other iOS device. Since John's Shikatsu Myoki is only available in SmartGo Books for iOS, this can easily make it out of question. Hence (probably why) logan asked for other's opinions. I could have easily purchased SM, but it's very outside my reading abilities.

And even though I don't want to open Pandora's box, John can actually be "somewhat" emotional when someone criticises his work. Happens to everyone, I'd feel (and have felt with my own work) the same way, it may be a bad thing but we all share the trait. And I say this having 4 or 5 of John's books in Kindle and SmartGo formats (I purchased SmartGo's Shuei collection even if I had already purchased 2 of the volumes as Kindle volumes.) so it's not like I have something against him or his books.

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Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

I may not be able to afford space flight, but i am not about to start critiquing Virgin Galactic's service in any way. Nor would i hold a grudge towards Virgin for not catering to the confines of what i can afford within my lifestyle.

My point being that this isn't a question of affordability or availability, so lets not try to justify the criticism by diverting from the topic at hand.


Logan was not asking for opinions and if you look at the first post i think you would find that it would be a very good candidate for a direct personal message to John himself.




I just don't think it is right to critique and judge the books organization or content until he has read the book.

You raise two issues here.

First you wondered why logan didn't get the book and check it himself. This is where the affordability/willingness part of my answer comes. Simple, easy. Some people don't like or want iPads. Just that, so this could explain why logan can't check it or is not willing to check it directly and prefers to ask other people.

As for the personal message. it depends a lot on who is asking and who should be the private message recipient. In a similar case, I'd probably also ask the forum and not John directly. I value other's people time investment and personal inboxes, and I'd rather get an answer from a forum member willing to answer, who has the time to spare in an answer, than send a personal message that may disturb other's time. More succintly, if I have a question about the design of the go language, I ask on reddit or the mailing list. I don't send a personal message to Rob Pike unless I have already made all possible groundwork first.

_________________
Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

Where did i say that i wondered why? Honestly, i couldn't give a flying expletive why he hasn't obtained the book.

I thought that i clearly stated, that i don't understand why he felt the need to critique a book he hasn't read and that i feel he should purchase and read it before being critical of it publicly. (The main point, and the point you seemed to have missed while feeling the need to add your two bits.)



Well Gee, do i have to state that John is the recipient and Logan is asking. You couldn't gather that from my post?

You see i somehow think that John would be quite capable and happy to answer a private message about one of his new books - which is selling after-all.

He hasn't struck me as being anywhere near as unapproachable and emotionally unstable as he has been made out to be. I will quote myself.


And of course there is always Anders of SmartGo, who would give a fellow go player the shirt off his back if he thought they needed it. So if the question was not asked of John i can only think Anders would be the next best in line to answer any such queries.

Assuming he wouldn't have the time, or wouldn't be happy to answer the questions is quite unfair to John or anyone in that position without at least trying to contact them first (we seem to be forming an overlying pattern here right? before contacting, before reading).

The confusion could have been avoided from the beginning and i think we see that in hindsight. I only hope that similar situations do not present themselves in the near future.


edit: minor spelling mistakes.

Let's leave it here, you didn't get what I was pointing at, and I don't want to fight for someone else's points of view.

_________________
Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

You really have learnt from hindsight.

Logan's question could have been answered by other people who had purchased the book via SmartGo. There's no need to send a private message to the author.



Why does Anders even come up here? He wrote the software it is using and is publishing, but Logan had a fairly simple question. He's not asking for shirts.