I'm going to throw out the three of yours you put in (why am I not surprised they're there), since I have not read them.

Tesuji and Attack and Defense are great books, but similar style books exist in Japan (which is no surprise from Kiseido).
I have never read Strategic Concepts of Go, so I can't comment on it specifically. It was written by a Japanese author, so I expect that much of what is taught is in Japanese literature.
Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go is a great book and not one I could say easily exists elsewhere. Yilung Yang is a great teacher.

It seems that you are referring to Capturing Races 1. The only noteworthy term invention there is "fighting liberty". It makes a complicated thing simple because it allows the statement of the extraordinarily simple (and correct!) New Semeai Formula dF =? 0 for the basic semeai Classes 1 + 2. So 48 cases are summarised in one formula. The 1 case of Type 1 Case 7 is a seki. The remaining 44 cases are trivial (initially a major string in atari etc.) and so players can choose to ignore them.

Previously, matters were more complicated (and incorrect in some cases); part of the explanation is in the Correcting Mistakes in Literature chapter, where the nasty concept Forced Liberties is criticised.



It is not simple counting because a) one must know WHAT to count and b) HOW to compare Black's and White's numbers.

(You would not believe how many dan players do not know the number of approach liberties of a 5-point eye...)



Thanks for the confirmation;)



No, it is (still) like theory of addition for pupils just above elementary school. When there are complicated approach moves and kos, the theory will reach (partly in research papers elsewhere has already reached) the level you fear.



Professional games are a good source for learning but professuonal comments too often are of the uninformative "this move is good, believe me" level. Have you ever seen a pro commentary with a proper positional judgement of the whole board? Maybe it exists but I have not seen it yet. Even such basics are missing in pro commentaries!



Ko theory is and will become more fun indeed:)

You're thinking of Fundamental Principles of Go. Lessons in the Fundamentals is Japanese of course.

I am aware of the existence of that opinion, but I do not fear opinions. What I fear is evidence of possibly having made factual mistakes (if any)! To me, superior (or simply correct) reasons are important. Opinions I meet with reasoning (where I can).

Now this would be worth more details!:)



Sure, but, from a dan player's view, it is only basic contents and only little: to know roughly what miai, test move, aji, sacrifice stones, thickness and 3 more concepts are. So "taught in Japanese literature" does not have that much relevance. It is more relevant that the concepts are presented as concepts and are presented at one place, so that the SDK reader gets a good first overview on a few important central topics he needs to become aware of at all.



First Fundamentals is a similar book with also these major differences: it does not stress on every second page that studying the fundamentals is essential (which is the most important lesson of Lessons in the Fundamentals); it explains quite a few fundamentals in detail (sufficient detail for "beginners"; Lessons in the Fundamentals lacks this detail).

Sorry, you're right I do that a lot.

Lessons in the Fundamentals is a direct translation.

I for one have never bought a book because I thought the author was nice.

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Patience, grasshopper.

I did that for two books.

You do realise you just made magicwand's point for him?

It doesn't matter, because they are both translations of Korean Go books. I am learning Mandarin ordered a Mandarin Go book, my wife read the intro and told me it was a translation from Korean.

By the way if anyone knows of go books that have been translated to English from Chinese let me know, ideally a dual language book would be great.

I am disappointed by all the personal attacks (direct or insinuated) on Jasiek.

All he's said is that he thinks that his books are better than others. Geez. Is no one allowed to have an opinion around here? In this case, his opinion was relevant to the discussion, which is about the relative merits of Japanese vs Western go literature. He took the time to write a book and he's proud of the product. So what? It's just his opinion. So what if he states his claims repeatedly? He might boast about his books very often, but almost never unless books/tips for improvement comes up. This being a go forum, those topics come up very often. At the very least, I find his boasts (even if false) to be a thousand times more relevant than the posts that mock them without much explanation (or any of the half-dozen one-line in-thread jokes that you might see on a given day).


If we strip away the terms that would have been defined in his book, I see that, if Jasiek's claims are true, he has simplified (48 cases solved by one rule) information rather than complicating it. It might be more complicated-sounding due to the presence of terms that Jasiek has created that are not in our common go lexicon, but complicated-sounding does not equal complicated.

Also, Magicwand's suggestions that only books written by pros are worth reading is laughable. Many college textbooks are written by non-academics who don't do any research. There are different levels of knowledge. A pro's strength is so much greater than that of your typical amateur dan player. An analog of what Magicwand is claiming is this: Only math professors can write math books, including ones about addition, subtraction, and high school algebra. Pull-eze.

We also have to realize that most go professionals have much less formal education than regular people due to the amount of time and effort they devoted to go as youths. Lee Sedol is a high school dropout (as are many other top pros) for goodness sakes! Even though the pros are infinitely stronger than amateurs, it does not take a leap of faith to believe that they would be worse than well-educated amateurs at communicating knowledge to others (provided that it is knowledge that both possess, rather than knowledge possessed exclusively by one party).

From what I can gather from my reading of Jasiek's posts around here, his primary dissatisfaction with the existing go literature derives from the sparsity of clearly stated principles that amateurs can repeatedly and confidently apply once they have learned them. If I understand his thesis correctly, he is claiming that go theory, as organized by professionals, is a collection of principles that often contradict each other, and that the burden falls on the player to gain enough game experience and reading skills to decide which ones to apply (and ignore) in a given situation. He seems to think that his books present go theory in a way that reduces some of that burden. Whether that is true or not is for the readers to judge.

Why are we so often told to study pro games? A pro game contains a pro's judgment of which of the two dozen mutually contradictory go principles we should apply in a given position. By studying many pro games, we eventually get a good feel for how to do this. I don't think that this is a bad way to study. It's fun and enjoyable. If done enough times, it also leads to significant improvement. However, it also takes some time. From what I can see, Jasiek's desire is to provide some shortcuts where he can.

I think we can all agree that, whether he achieved those goals or not, his goals are worthy ones. To those who think that pursuing such goals is a pointless task because we already have good enough methods for learning: Basic socks have performed their function well for centuries. Was it pointless to develop socks that dry faster and don't slide down? Do those who spent time on such projects deserve our ridicule? Civilization as we know it might not exist if everyone had that sort of attitude.


So here, a poster who hasn't read Jasiek's book (other than a short sample) is disparaging both the writer and the book. He claims that all amateurs who have tried in the past have failed so Jasiek will fail as well. He also claims that he can tell that Jasiek's books are bad by reading three page samples from books that are almost 300 pages long. He also claims that he is a math major. Any good math major knows that inferences about the whole from the part are unsound. Yet he makes two such inferences here.

I haven't read any of Jasiek's books, but I've read John Fairbairn's review of some of them. John's reviews were generally favorable. Consider the excerpt from his review, which is quoted below:
That's a pretty strong endorsement from someone whose opinion most of us on this forum respect quite a bit. Granted, John's endorsement doesn't reach the heights suggested by Jasiek's sometimes grandiose language, but it's a pretty strong thumbs-up. John also criticizes what he considers a number of specific weaknesses in Robert's books. I wish people would follow John's example (read the books and criticize specifics with justification) instead of engaging in vague and snide side-swiping that reeks more of thinly veiled cyber-bullying than legitimacy.

I also find Jasiek's boasts to be a little bit too much at times, but guess what? I haven't read his books and I cannot counter his claims. Just leave him be unless you've read his books, and let's dispense with future repetitions of this illogical myth that only pros can write good go books, even if it turns out that Jasiek's books are no better than dog poo.

EDIT: Minor corrections

I realise that there are people running away when seeing a delta symbol (here I write 'd') in front of a variable before being explained that it stands for difference. The same people run away when they read the truth: that there are 93 cases. Then Thomas Wolf appears and pretends simplicity by ignoring all seki cases, as if it were immediately obvious whether a semeai is a fight or a seki. It is not: one liberty can make the difference.

There are also people like Magicwand who pretend that it is all reading and, when convinced that it is rather counting than reading, pretend that counting would always be the same. It is not: the inside liberties count for one player or neither, which player that can be is determined by different conditions (greater number of exclusive approach liberties, eye or bigger eye), of the inside liberties either all or all but one can count.

There are also people who pretend that a semeai is a semeai no matter what. The truth is: it makes a difference depending on whether there are 1) no eyes, 2) small eyes, 3) big eyes of the same size, 4) only one eye or 5) big versus small eye.

Then there is Hunter who explains semeais as if the just mentioned 5 (he makes 6 out of them) types sufficed. It is the study of all the cases of liberties (equal versus unequal numbers of exclusive approach liberties, equal vs. greater vs. smaller fighting liberties) that reveals why Hunter's rough structure is not particularly helpful: By sorting the types and cases well, structure emerges from the chaos. 24 parallel and 24 ring semeais have the same behaviour; one 1 ring semeai is special. (Oh, there are even more who pretend that ring semeais do not exist.) So we are dealing with 24 cases. Then we notice that the types 1-3 cases are essentially the same 6 cases and that the types 4+5 cases are essentially the same 3 cases, and we are at only 9 cases.

9 cases for those ignoring the trivialities but wishing more than the 1 New Semeai Formula's information which player wins the semeai by how many liberties: the information whether the semeai is won by the 1st moving player, the favourite or the underdog or is a seki. Oops, this information is already revealed by the New Semeai Formula, well, almost; the formula itself does not distinguish seki from unsettled.

Do you get it? Players can study [basic] semeais [of two groups] as detailed as they want: they can choose whether they want to use 1 formula, 9 cases, 24 cases, 49 cases or 93 cases. In addition, they need to learn whose the inside liberties are and whether one of them is ignored.

Knowing the definition of "joseki" is fine. Knowing a general evaluation method to determine whether something is joseki is better. Knowing also hundreds of representative josekis gives confidence. Now would you say that, seeing the number 563 of josekis a dictionary might teach, you need to run away? Why do people run away when they see the number 93 for semeais? Do they want to understand less of semeais than of josekis? Maybe. But is is the fault of me as the author of a detailed book? I offer the choice to study semeais as carefully as a joseki dictionary offers the choice to study josekis carefully. If you spend months on learning josekis, then why would you not spend a few weeks on learning semeais? Because learning josekis is more fun? Or because you do not have the joseki book yet that explains all basic josekis in just 1 formula?

Face it: go theory is not as easy as some pretend (or you pretend to yourself). However, go theory can be worked out so well that all its structure becomes apparent clearly.

I'm not sure. My sense is that anyone whose opinion is not Jasiek's can expect to be browbeaten to the point of exhaustion. Many of us have tried to respond to Robert on many points. It appears to be a full time job. I can't fault someone who doesn't want to enter into a never-ending battle.


A modest proposal

Any useful signal is getting lost in the noise of endless quoting of throwaway sentences, extravagant claims and personal attacks.

I think it would be better, for those who disagree with Robert, for the original posters who get dragged into a never-ending dispute every time theory and/or books are discussed, and even for Robert himself (as a man promoting his personal theory), if we could some how factor out this discussion.

Perhaps we can have the knockdown drag-out thread about our ideas of go theory, and at the end of it, whoever is interested can write position statements, either here on the boards, or off board. When new threads come up, Robert can write

Heck, I could even post for him, merely substituting "Robert Jasiek believes" for "I believe".

If this sounds like I'm annoyed with Robert, I am, and it would be dishonest to pretend I'm not. But I really do think we're all doing a terrible job of helping anyone understand anything with all of this debate, and I really mean all of us. For all that I disagree with them, Robert's ideas deserve a clean, clear and comprehensive presentation that is free of hecklers, and it's not getting that right now.

Edit: substituted 'them' for 'it' for grammar.

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Occupy Babel!

Well, he brought up this topic of Japanese and Western brilliant literature. I thought it was kind of funny and not unsurprising that half of the books were his own. This topic was never supposed to be about only his books.

I believe we need to define what appropriate is.
when he claims that all other Asian books are subpar and his book is superior... i believe it is an advertisment of his books and is intrusive to asian books.

i would like to have some other members opinion on this matter.

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"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

I do not think it is an inappropriate advertisement. His comments about his books are typically on topic (perhaps not always). Therein lies the problem, in my mind. The comments are not trolling, they are not off-topic, but the back and forth ends up dominating most threads where it arises.

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Occupy Babel!

Well... personally, regardless of the value of RJ's books (which I have not read) - I find his constant message of "My book is superior to anything else, buy it!" getting tiresome. Its almost like each time he posts lately he crams his books down our collective throats. I feel it is repetitive, redundant, and irritating. But this is my personal opinion only, which does not really add much to the overall scheme of things - and this is why I try to be quiet about it.

As for the quality of "His Books" vs. "Other Books" - it is hard to tell without actually reading them. Unfortunately, from the few sample pages he gives, I am not the target audience it seems. The material, while possibly interesting, are much too dry for me, much too clinical. I do not see Go as something that can be distilled into a bunch of formulas and theorems. Nor should it be. Apparently there are a bunch of people out there who are more than happy to view Go in such manner, and for those RJ might be a new prophet. I am not one of them, and probably never will be.

As for RJ himself - I have argued with him over the last few years (close to 2 decades now) more than most, I think. And the conclusion I came to is - it is pointless. Not because he is stupid (he is actually rather smart) - but because of his unwillingness to see anything other than what fits nicely into his (narrow?) perception of the world. He assumes his opinion is the only correct one, his approach is the only right one, and is willing to argue the point with definitions, theorems, and formulas until the cows come home. I call him Mr.Spock since this is exactly what he reminds me of.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

The context of this thread is
Someone: does any know of any good Japanese go books?
Robert: there are good Japanese go books, but my books are brilliant.

Is that really relevant?

I agree with this. Before I was more irritated, but lately I've grown to enjoy it. He's convinced of his own superiority so much, I kind of hope he eventually succeeds. However, he doesn't seem to do that well with his own methods.

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