Hi everyone,

I started playing go a few months ago. Now I'm 8 kyu on KGS, and I'm looking to buy books on go to improve. I'm looking for 4 types of book, I was hoping you could help me choose the right books.

- One book about the endgame. I really don't know any theory about this part of the game.
- On book with cool pro games reviewed. I discovered "invinsible, shusaku" but it's difficult for me to read: some images have more than 50 new moves.
- On book on Tsumego. I've never really worked on tsumego problems.
- On book on Counting. I'm really bad at estimating my territory, or knowing "okay, this move is worth 5 points"

Any advice? Thanks!

Edit: looking only for books written in English.

http://senseis.xmp.net/?TheEndgameTheBook - Explains Endgame and (Territory-)Counting
http://senseis.xmp.net/?200EndgameProbl ... ingTactics - Endgame Tsumego - good overall tsumego book, well composed
http://www.hebsacker-verlag.de/learning ... -4503.html - very good game analysis with alomost move by move commentary - easy to read, very insightful
Also I would recommend this book for you as a beginner:
http://senseis.xmp.net/?OpeningTheoryMadeEasy - very very good book on the opening

If you are 8kyu on kgs then I would recommend these tsumego books:

- Weiqi Tsumego 1000 Problems (http://senseis.xmp.net/?WeiqiLifeAndDeath1000Problems)
Its from beginner to maybe 1k.

There is also a series of 3 books which is great
The first volume might be good for you:

- Weiqi Tsumego Training (http://senseis.xmp.net/?WeiqiLifeAndDeathDrills)

You could also get:

- 1001 life and death, mastering the basics (http://senseis.xmp.net/?OneThousandAndO ... thProblems) if you have trouble getting the first two books.


The first two are harder than the last one but you will really learn to read everything precisely from practicing those.

Enjoy

Don't loose too much time on endgame before you are at least high sdk as it will not help you that much yet. (1-4k)

Cheers,
Otenki

These are all good books. Otenki's suggestions below will help you with tsumego more than the endgame problem book which is more about endgame tesuji than life-and-death.

As far as counting and positional judgement are concerned, Cho Chikun's book Positional Judgement will help.

I can recommend Kamakura by John Fairbairn as an excellent professional game book. It has a large format that makes it easy to lie flat and has a limited number of moves per diagram. There are other books in this series that are reputedly equally excellent, but I have not gotten around to those yet.

I am afraid that I cannot recommend the Ogawa-Davies endgame book. The only one that I can recommend is O Meien's book on "Absolute Counting", but it is in Japanese. See viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3008&p=48254&hilit=meien+fairbairn#p48254 .

The endgame material on Sensei's Library is good. http://senseis.xmp.net/?Endgame

The 200 Endgame Problems book is good, and practical, besides.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

So Bill, when are you going to come out with your endgame book?

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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.

Don't be coy, Bill. You and Ogawa-Davies are my two main sources for this topic. What's wrong with The Endgame? Where did they steer me wrong?

Earliest would be 2015.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I haven't looked at it since it came out. At least Ogawa and Davies realized that there was something fishy about double sente. Nearly all yose books are riddled with calculation errors, as well as errors about sente and gote. (Which sort of shows how unimportant exact calculation is. ) O Meien's book avoids a lot of errors. For one thing, he does not calculate the value of sente and double sente, and his "absolute values" act like people think that values should act. The most practical aspect of yose is tesuji, IMHO.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Thanks a lot! So to summarise your responses:

- One book about the endgame => Elementary Go Series: The endgame (but there may be some mistakes in it)
- On book with cool pro games reviewed => Learning from Pro Games OR/AND Kamakura
- On book on Tsumego => Weiqi Tsumego 1000 Problems OR/AND Weiqi Tsumego Training
- On book on Counting => Positional Judgement

Any other ideas? Or I should start buying these?
Thanks!

To follow on from Bill's idea about tesuji being the most important part of yose- if you don't want a text-bookish book on the endgame but would rather learn by doing, I can recommend 200 Endgame Problems. Compared to 'get strong at the endgame' these problems are seem more on the introductory level.

On pro games, I really like the 'Masterplay' books by Yuan Zhou, he makes pro games seem so understandable I'm sure John Fairbairns books are great also, I just haven't personally bought any yet

For tsumego, I really like 1001 L&D problems but can't compare it to the '1000 weiqi..' book. Or/and, if you can find copies, the Lee Changho books are great. Try and find the tesuji ones while you're at it.

On counting, I have no opinion

There is an interactive "e-book" version of Invincible. Look for SmartGo Books. It's just great, you can simply playthrough every diagram. At this moment it is for iOS devices only, but who knows what will bring tomorrow .

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Tsumego/Tesuji apps for iPad, iPhone & Android devices:http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=7511