Review: The Basic Principles of the Opening and the Middle Game
GENERAL SPECIFICATION
* Title: The Basic Principles of the Opening and the Middle Game * Authors: Rob van Zeijst, Richard Bozulich * Publisher: Kiseido * Edition: First Printing September 2014 * Language: English * Price: EUR 17.50 * Contents: opening, middle game * ISBN: 978-4-906574-83-4 * Printing: almost good * Layout: inefficient * Editing: almost good * Pages: 142 * Size: 148mm x 210mm * Diagrams per Page on Average: 2 * Method of Teaching: principles, examples * Read when EGF: 9k - 5k * Subjective Rank Improvement: + * Subjective Topic Coverage: - * Subjective Aims' Achievement: o
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Introduction
The Basic Principles of the Opening and the Middle Game is Volume 2 of the series The Road Map to Shodan. Every page shows two 19x19 diagrams and their comments. Every chapter starts with, or is continued by, a principle or a few related principles and a very short general explanation. After ca. two examples, every chapter concludes with a few problems and their answers. As the title suggests, the topics and principles are about the opening or middle game.
Chapters
The book's table of contents lists the principles (whose copying here would be unfair), problems and answers sections. The topics are missing. Since they guide to the contents, I cite them and state the page numbers of their headings here:
Extensions and Efficiency...1 Confinement, Linkage, and Separation...27 Weak Stones and Weak Positions...41 Handling Moyos...61 Escaping...65 Handling Thickness...77 The Third and Fourth Lines in the Opening...92 Defending Against a 3-3 Point Invasion...97 Turning a Moyo into Territory...113 How to Make Sabaki...120
Contents
The principles are the book's core. Everything else explains, illustrates or practises them. The basic ideas of the principles, the text and the move sequences are correct. The text, examples and problems are suitable for becoming familiar with at least the basic ideas of the principles. However, the text often is elliptical and the stronger readers would want to see many missing alternative moves and variations.
Contrary to the advertisement speech in the title of the book series, the restricted scope of the principles and variations makes it hard to recommend the book for players EGF 4 kyu or stronger. Contrary to the title, almost all principles for double digit kyu players are missing (compare First Fundamentals); therefore the book also cannot be recommended to them. Surely the book's principles are basic or fundamental and important for improving as a kyu player. Although everybody would have learnt part of them from hearsay, every written account provides a sufficiently useful reference to recommend the book simply on the ground that no player must miss any relevant principle.
However, the definite article starting the title ("The Basic Principles...") repeats the same mistake of the book The Fundamental Principles of Go, which had to be renamed to Fundamental Principles of Go. The Basic Principles of the Opening and the Middle Game is an absolutely improper title for a book offering only principles for a small range of playing strengths, only a selection of such principles of all basic principles for the opening and middle game, and often only weak versions of such principles.
Judged by its own title and series title, the book is a failure. Ignoring the initial definite article and the series title permits a clearer view on the intention of the book. It is an easy going approach for intermediate players wishing to enhance their knowledge of basic principles.
The topics do not get a consistently, equally long discussion, but some topics are explained with greater care than other topics. Luckily, the important thickness chapter belongs to the former. Turning a Moyo into Territory is an example of a somewhat disappointing chapter; a useful general characterisation of urgent moves does not find its application throughout the chapter.
Most of the explained knowledge belongs to verbal Japanese heritage. Modern Western style knowledge is mostly missing with the exception of characterising territory efficiency or overconcentration in my way. Unfortunately, a naive reader might easily overlook such relevant information amidst ordinary text. Only the principles are highlighted in bold font.
There are no principles for specific opening theory, such as "Avoid opposing 3-4 points.". The principles in the book are suitable for both the opening and middle game.
A still small but already significant part of the examples or problems is about joseki or tesuji knowledge. This is a bit disappointing considering the promised opening and middle game topics.
Principles
There are 20 principles and 6 additional variations of them, but 1 principle and its 2 variants amount to just 1 reworded principle. Therefore, 24 is a reasonable number of the principles in the book.
Although they are called principles, the authors oppose them by discussing major exceptions in the text and speaking of training the, as they call it, intuition. There I have to disagree. The purpose of principles should not just be guidelines for subconscious thinking - principles must strive for great generality, even if exceptions must not be overlooked. Why do the authors not fully trust their own principles? These principles are not always developed and worded as powerful and general as they should be. 19 of the 24 principles should be formulated more generally or more correctly. 2 principles should be less general so as to be correct more often. For example, if the authors had learnt from my principles, they would know that a general advice for weak stones can be right for important weak stones and wrong for non-essential weak stones. Kyu players on their way to dan level need such distinctions, but the book over-simplifies as if the basic principle "Sacrifice non-essential stones." would not exist.
How complete or incomplete is the book's selection of principles? For example, my browsing through only the basic principles in Fighting Fundamentals suggests: none of the over 30 basic principles appears in The Basic Principles of the Opening and the Middle Game. What does this mean for its selection of principles? The book offers a broad but very incomplete selection of principles. This is useful but defies the title.
Expensive
There are 274 diagrams (of which only 2 are smaller than 19x19) on the 142 pages. Instead of having significant white spaces, the diagrams could be accompanied by more detailed, longer explanations in the text. It is difficult to put more diagrams on a DIN A5 page carrying two 19x19 diagrams. However, 152 of the 274 diagrams could have been shown on a quarter or about half of the board. This combined with efficient layout and avoided big to very big fonts to shrink white spaces means that the book, for which an experienced reader needs only 5.5 hours, easily could have been printed on about half the number of its pages, i.e., 70 or 80 pages. EUR 17.50 for this is expensive, unless one thinks that the 24 principles justify the price.
Conclusion
The book should not be bought for its title or number of pages. It is for 9 to 5 kyus preferring an easy going, selective approach to principles and tolerating their over-simplification, which requires having to learn more generally applicable or more correct versions of the principles from other sources as a stronger player.
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