In 1934, at the height of the New Fuseki craze, the Hochi Shinbun newspaper devised a match which pitted the two leading proponents of New Fuseki, Kitani Minoru and Go Seigen, against two traditionalists - their teachers, Suzuki Tamejiro and Segoe Kensaku. But this was no ordinary game. It was an attempt to get the "perfect game" and so the two sides were allowed to confer. Not only that, they could make trial moves on a separate board, and they were given plenty of time to discuss their moves - sixteen hours each spread over five full playing days.

The newspaper's reporter recorded the consultations and daily instalments appeared in the newspaper. A little later, these were compiled into a book. That was an entire book on just one game!

Just in case that was considered heavy going, the newspaper readers were also given frequent dollops of historical anecdotes. These did not always shed light directly on the consultation game itself, but they were  mostly not well-known stories and so they form a delightful sideshow. More than that, perhaps, they changed the pace of the commentary, and usefully both allowed and encouraged readers to absorb the different nuances of each player's comments, which not only revealed much about their style of thinking but also about their individual characters. This will be especially useful to readers of previous books by John Fairbairn, because these players have featured there frequently and in some depth.

Because of the generous space allotted to the commentary, readers could see how the top four active players of the time evaluated positions, how they chose their moves, how they thought about the endgame, how they managed their time - even how they still managed to make mistakes despite the generous time allowance and the chance to consult a partner! In particular, it seems that the biggest mistakes often arose because they were unable to predict the opponents' moves. But then we also see how they manage to recover.

The present book is based on the original Hochi Shinbun series, but contains many extras for the western audience. A attempt has been made to recreate the sensation that the original Japanese readers might have had, and so, as recommended by modern learning theory, follows the "effortful practice" format used in previous books by John Fairbairn. However, some of the effort is eased by the use of colour and extensive diagrams. Indexes are also included.

One intriguing aspect of this game is that the spellbinding attraction and utter bewilderment some people feel for go as played by today's AI bots matches rather well the almost orgasmic fascination the Japanese of the 1930s felt for New Fuseki. They too wanted to know how New Fuseki altered go theory. The Hochi Shinbun games (there were two later ones as well) at least showed them how top pros approached the problem of trying to make sense of new go theory. The lessons are still valid in the present AI age.

This unique book appeared originally in the GoGoD Encyclopaedia before appearing in a much truncated paper version published by Slate & Shell in 2007. The present 2024 version restores all the truncated parts and adds new material (in particular, an AI post-mortem is added to supplement the post-mortems by the four players), so that it now has twice as many pages in the same-size format.  The format, with many diagrams, the chatty text and the anecdotal material make this an ideal book for reading in bed. But, at a more serious level, it should be noted that this book in combination with the similar book Great Unexpectations gives a rare yet highly detailed - and surprising - insight into how professional players think. This insight carries over into how we have to view the human approach to what AI can teach go players.

2024 was chosen for the re-issue because it is a significant date for go. It marks the 100th anniversary of the Nihon Ki-in.

It is available on-demand on the usual Amazon sites. (The old S&S "legacy" edition remains available via SmartGo as an iPad e-book. No e-book vdition of the new version will be issued.)

I have purchased and enjoyed several of you books, most recently Kamakura, Great Unexpectations, and Eminence Grise. I also very much enjoyed the E-book version of the "Go Consultants".

I would like to know just how much new material is the physical book re-issue of the Go Consultants.

The external size is the same but the page count goes up from 150 to 300 pages. There are about 25 historical stories, plus extras such as photos and indexs, and the AI post-mortem. It is also in colour.

Thanks for the book!
Should we wait for EPUB version for this book and for "Encyclopaedia of Classical Go Problems, Volume 1" ?

I never do e-books. sorry!

I meant SmartGo (gobooks.com). I noticed some your books there.

SmartGo have a couple of books (done by Bill Cobb) from the days when Slate & Shell were retreating from paper publishing and trying out e-books. I have let them remain but the Go Consultants book there will now be renamed the Legacy Edition (or some such) but it will be old "half-size" version.

I did once dabble with e-books myself but it cost me an arm and a leg to get all the Apple Mac gear which I did not like at all, and sales generally seem very poor for go e-books. I'm sure there are rather more readers of these than there are sales! Robert: how have you found this segment of the market?

In order not to create a new topic: How do I get all Honinbo Shuei content?
I guess I need:
- The Life, Games and Commentaries of Honinbo Shuei (757 pages, SmartGo)
- Games of Shuei: with commentaries (538 pages, 2020)
- Meijin of Meijins - The Life and Times of Honinbo Shuei (232 pages, 2015)

Is the "e-book version" status there wrong or it exists nevertheless via purchasing GoGoD?

The combination of Games of Shuei: with commentaries (538 pages, 2020) + - Meijin of Meijins - The Life and Times of Honinbo Shuei (232 pages, 2015) will give you everything you need.

Any e-books will give you something substantial but nowhere near as much as the paper books.

The image you posted produced an "extremely malicious" alert for me from Norton.

By saying I never do e-books now I mean precisely that. Other people have produced e-book versions (with permission and payment of royalties, of course) and they have done all the hard work necessary to create and test the interactive versions. That kind of work involves owning Mac equipment, which I no longer do.