Hey guys!
My girlfriend made me a present last week: The brand new graded go problems for dan players: life and death

The book contains 300 Life and Death problems ranging from 5kyu up to 3 dan. The Problems are sorted by rank starting with the "weaker" problems and then raising up.I've the book half-done (near problem 160), where the first 3-dan problems emerge.
I really enjoy reading this book, especially beause most of the problems are not made up but could acctually occure in a real game.

Has anybody read the other two titles of the graded go problem dan-player series (Tesuji, Joseki)?


Edit//
Maybe I should mention that every problem is categorized not only by rank but by time (f.e. "Solve at a glance - 2kyu", "solve within 3 minutes - 1 dan" etc. ), some problems contain a small hint-text like "There was a proverb saying how to increase liberties with cutting" or something like that.

I am still too weak for these books (10k EGF), but I had a glance at the first few problems and could solve some of them at a glance. It seems that these are less difficult than the problems at "Graded Go Problems for Beginners" Vol. IV.

I got the first two volumes (life & death and tesuji) a month ago. So far I am also about half done in the life and death book (170 problems done so far) and I enjoyed it a lot. I enjoyed the graded go problems for beginners a lot and this series looks just as good.

I went through the tesuji book entirely. The problems are separated in three parts (100 problems for each part): tesuji in joseki, tesuji for capturing cutting stones or winning capturting races and tesuji in the endgame. I was a bit disappointed by some of the problems about joseki, because it didn't feel like studying tesuji. The others problems are quite good, and it was good surprise to find so many endgame problems.

The next volumes about tesuji and life and death should be available soon and I plan on buying them as soon as possible.

These books are compiled and translated from the Nihon Ki-in Dan Level Series see this SL page: http://senseis.xmp.net/?NihonKiInDanLevel

I looked through them recently when I was trying to decide which books to buy at a tournament, but I thought they were too easy. The problems are very standard low-dan stuff, a lot of "classical" problems which once you've seen somewhere else you remember.

If you're a dan player and you study tsumego regularly, I would make sure to look through them first before putting down money.

- Az

She's a keeper.

Took me some time to find her, the best thing is: I don't need to convince her to visit tournaments ~ instead she convinces me!

If the levels of these books are too low then you can get similar books for 6-dan and 7-dan in Japanese. See this link and the books referred to on that page:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E5%85%AD%E6%AE ... 33&sr=1-55

And above all she's a go player. You're very lucky
She's around my strength and I have played her several times on tournaments.

I wonder what is the shipping cost from amazon japan to US for these books? One book cost like 8 dollars which is way less than kiseido.

If you want the exact price, fill your cart with what you want and go to the window where 'place your order' button is (the final screen before you place your order), it will give you the total shipping.