Dear all,

I have recently restarted studying go more seriously, mainly focussing on (i) reviewing my own games and (ii) solving go problems. I'm currently working my way through the 4th volume of Graded Go Problems for Beginners (I'm a 8-9 kyu for the moment, though this is my own interpretation) but I'm having a lot of trouble when solving problems involving ko. I tend to get lost in the reading/patterns.

I was wondering which go book would be the best for me to study, in order to get better at this?

Thank you very much for all the tips! Have a nice weekend.

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Hi cornucopia,

Others can provide much better references ( GGPfB is excellent ), but from what you wrote, it seems you're currently studying the local mechanics of ko: the fundamental shapes and sequences to start or prevent a ko. That certainly is important in the study of ko; however, a very tricky part is the global evaluation: the value of a ko, and evaluating ko threats. Enjoy!

The literature is still weak about the topic ko, except for hard to find Asian pure collections of basic ko aspects for various ranks and All About Ko, which is mainly a problem book also suitable for your level and leaves many aspects untouched. Other English books solely on ko are not worth mentioning. If you were a bit stronger, I might recommend other books about other topics but also discussing important aspects of kos, such as Positional Judgement 1, Endgame 2 and 3. Sensei's Library helps a bit but you need to distinguish useful from too advanced information and expect gaps in the theory. Ko is a rich and important topic so I want to write several books on the topic but probably still won't find time during next few years.

The book "Tesuji" by Davies has a small chapter about ko.

The book https://senseis.xmp.net/?ThinkLikeAProPae is exclusively about ko.

If you don't mind looking at asian books, there is a book by Cho U where he shows how he thinks about ko in 27 of his games. The book is available in Chinese and Japanese but not sure if they are still in print. I have the Chinese version and talked a little bit about it on my blog.
https://tchan001.wordpress.com/2013/08/ ... -of-cho-u/

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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.

Hi,
Learn to Play go volume 4 (Janice Kim and Jeong Soo-Hyun) also has a chapter about ko.

Compared to the book Tesuji, Learn to Play Go contains more explanation for beginners : there is a commented ko fight, and explanations about distinguishing between an important ko and an unimportant one.
There is also a more advanced part explaining how to choose the best ko threat.

On the other hand, Tesuji explains how to create a ko when you need it, showing some common shapes that can be used to create a ko. It also explains the mechanics of a two-stage ko.

Both books explain multi-step kos, double kos and picnic kos.

Thank you very much everyone! I'll check out the sources mentioned here!

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I would also add that the fourth volume of GGPB is pretty tough for an 8-9k. At your level I would do volume 2 for problems that you should be able to solve smoothly, and volume 3 to challenge yourself a bit.

The flip side is that if you're doing fine with volume 4 except for some ko problems, you may be stronger than 8k!

Thanks, I do indeed experience a tremendous 'gap' in difficulty between volume 3 and 4! I like to mix easier problems with tough ones so thank you very much for the tip!

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Thanks for placing also can recommend and like books of Yoon Youngsun in general. My first was "100 Tips for Amateur Players"

I have too dedicated books on ko: All about ko and Fighting ko (yutopian, maybe hard to get now.)

I really like All about ko. It touches on a lot of important things and I find the problems fairly instructive. There's so much that it doesn't touch on but that just highlights what a large field of study this is. It tries to get slightly technical but this part isn't very convincing for me.

Fighting ko is a more ambitious book but I find it more difficult to read (perhaps as a result?) There are a lot of examples illustrating the wide variety of ko circumstances. I would say that it's largely left to the reader to try to break down the similarities and differences between examples which is great practice but hard work.

I don't think either is an efficient way to improve your go strength but both are highly entertaining books. I would recommend reading for enjoyment. I will probably reread both at some point this year while staying home.

If any of you writer types would like to have a go at a more technical piece on ko then I would really welcome that!