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I have just received an unsolicited copy of this book. I was given it because I am mentioned there. I have not been asked to do a review, but my impression of the book is so different from Robert's that I think a countervailing opinion is called for. It's not that what he says is necessarily wrong or that I am necessarily right. It's more a case of glass-half-full versus glass-half-empty, though with the important caveat that, in the case case, I think the glass is almost full as opposed to almost empty.
The first thing that struck me, instantly, was our different initial perception of what the book comprises. Robert said "The book Mastering Basic Corner Shapes - Step-by-step contains life and death problems, answer diagrams and accompanying text." That's superficially true. But what my eyes saw was literally a book that helps you master basic corner shapes step by step. The problems are incidental. It's the process that matters. Even the cover illustration tells you that. To copy a tv advert famous in Britain, this product does "what it says on the tin."
To explain why I see it all so differently, I think the first step there is to note that the author is a pro, a trained educator, a Korean, a woman, and is married (I believe) to a German amateur player. She is Young Sun Yoon (or as I would have it, Yun Yeong-seon: 尹暎善 or 윤영선).
Each of those components is important, so let's take them in turn. As far as I know, she is a pro 5-dan. The flyleaf of the book say 8p, but ((unless it's an honorary degree or a mistake for 8-dan amateur) that doesn't accord with the Hanguk Kiwon site. Regardless, that's high. Higher than Sumire, for example. And she has won six titles in Korea. I think we can safely assume she knows what she is talking about on the go board. More than any amateur, anyway.
She got a master's degree in baduk (go) education from Myeongji University. That's rather more significant than it might seem. When Korea first started making a splash on the international scene, there was a huge nationwide push to teach ordinary Koreans to play go. This meant that every locality, even each block of flats, was to be assigned a go teacher, and, typically, children would go there after school. The demand for go teaching was enormous, and the courses at Myeongji University were tailored specifically to researching the teaching requirements and supplying the teachers. The frenzy has tailed off significantly but the results are still visible in the likes of Sin Chin-seo (Shin Jinseo). So, again, I think we can assume that Yoon, as a trained educator, knows what she is doing.
That pedagogic process was specific to Korea, but I mention Korea separately for another reason. In fact, I wish to contrast the whole of the Far East with the West in this regard. The dominant sense of why people play go in the West is that it is simply a hobby, and the purpose is to get as strong as you can - even to be a pro. Or, if you are like Bobby Fischer, to crush the other guy's ego. But in the Far East, there is a strong undercurrent of various ulterior purposes. Commonly, go is meant to teach you how think, how to socialise, how to get into a better university, and so on. And the people behind all this are mainly the parents. The above-mentioned drive in Korea was mostly parent-driven, even if some of them did treat it as a free Kindergarten service. Even in the past there were significant differences. In Japan especially, go was treated as a trade to be passed from parents to children, who would go on to run the family go school. These sorts of viewpoints seem lacking in the West. I have often advised people responsible for go publicity in Britain that the best way to promote the game may be to write up women's go in women's magazines, so as to point up the wider (and proven) educational advantages to the mothers who mostly make the educational choices for their kids. Think of snowplough (or lawnmower) parenting in the West. By contrast, Asian mothers drive combine harvesters! I have been totally ignored, of course, but I'm used to that.
Next in my list is the fact that Yoon is a woman. I think that is important mainly because female teachers have taught me far more than male teachers, and I think that's a widespread experience. I find that we men are more interested in ourselves; women are more interested in the pupils. Even guys as brilliant as Richard Feynman or Steven Pinker like to put on a show (think of the hair, for a start). Even last week I learnt more in an hour from a talk by a single female curator at the British Museum than I've ever learned from any male curator over a rather long period. And that was because she focused on the audience, telling them simply how to view a forthcoming exhibition she has curated on China. We learned little about her - it wasn't even clear if she knew any Chinese! I think Yoon is in the same mould. She is barely a presence in the book. She is clearly more interested in her readership, and specifically in teaching them how to think - lessons that will have benefits in fields outside go.
Lastly, Yoon is (I gather) now part of the amateur world in Europe. She therefore probably understands her audience and its needs (which are many).
All of that is also why I stress that the what you see on the cover is what is inside the tin: the step-by-step process of "mastering." Not any "Master tsumego in 10 days" rubbish. The content is an awful lot more than mere "accompanying text." It is an integrated whole in which the text is a vital part, because it is that which provides the navigation to make each step in the right direction. It may seem as if the book (in its layout as well as the contents) is featherweight light. But that's because it's written by a pro who can produce the same effect as a ballerina standing on her toes while smiling and looking like a fairy. We don't see the many hours a day of barre practice, or the bandage on the broken toes - but all that effort has been put in already.
So you can see that I am strongly recommending the book. I would, in fact, go further. I would happily say that it is better than the important books by James Davies or the Kiseido books, though if you were limited to those you would not be suffering much hardship. I'd say the real difference is that the previous western books give you a look out of the window. Yoon's book instead takes you on the first steps of an exciting journey.
The elephant in the room, of course, is the alternative approach of brute-force exhaustive search, which does have its (few?) proponents. My views on this are conditioned by the fact that I was hired to help out with the world's first shogi computer. It was to be written by programmers who had already produced first-class chess programs, but computer chips were then nothing like as powerful as they are now. The first major problem was that even shallow brute-force searches were impossible. The shogi board has far more squares (81) than a chess board (64), and there were no 9-bit chips but there were 8-bit chips (8x8 = 64 of course), and so bitwise operations in shogi were a non-starter. But much worse than that was the fact that shogi re-uses captured pieces which you can "drop" on (almost) any vacant square. That meant that the number of possible moves in each position, rarely more than 40 in chess, was usually of the order of a few hundred in shogi. My task in the assignment was to devise a list of proverbs and shapes (meaning mainly castles in shogi but also empty areas on the board) that the programmers could use to make the searches manageable. We succeeded to the extent that when we took our electronic board to Japan, we defeated a top pro at the Nihon Shogi Renmei taking a four-piece handicap (though I do believe he was being a little bit gentle with us).
I never tried to program go, but I would have taken the same approach. After all, even relatively simple problems have too many possible moves. Turning to a shelf behind me, I grasp the first tsumego book I can see (by Kudo Norio 9-dan). I flip the pages randomly and look at the problem at the flip's end. It has 7 possible starting moves. Only 7 - most problems have rather more. But with just 7 we get 7x6x5x4x3x2x1 moves to look at, and that assumes no captures! I can't be bothered to work out what that sum comes to, but whatever it is it is a lot, and Kudo estimates it will take you three minutes to solve the problem. That's very handy when you play at 30 seconds a move!
When you look at the solution, however, you will see instantly that there are themes you can use to speed up the search. There are three here. Even kyu players will recognise them and know to use them: miai, shortage of liberties and the 2-1 points. Some move-by move search is still needed, of course, for verification - that's why three minutes should be allocated. But two points can be usefully made.
One is that the problem may take three minutes the first time you have seen it, but once you have done this kind of problem over and over again, so that it becomes a ur-type stored in you memory, you can do it easily within 30 seconds. The brutal part of brute force is not so much in solving problems in a game but in the mind-numbing repetition needed to get to that state.
The other thing to mention is that shapes, pattern or dynamic sequences (or whatever else you choose to suit your own needs and temperament) are typically presented as helping to find a solution ("there is often a good move at the 2-1 point"). What tends to be forgotten is that such shapes, patterns and sequences, can also help you identify failures quickly. The Kudo book in question seems to do a good job in that regard, and so, it seems, does the Yun book. One sentence caught me eye quickly: "Black 1 is a typical mistake here." There is so much professional wisdom hidden in that one word 'typical.'
Above, I mentioned a merit of the the Yoon book was that it starts you on a journey. I like that idea, because I often harp on myself about the benefits of dynamic sequences - and step-by-step is ultimately another way of saying dynamic. I dislike the word "reading" in go, but we are stuck with it, and so I see the process as "controlled reading," and I consider the best analogy to be driving a car. In fact, my choice of the word "controlled" comes from something I read many years ago. This was an explanation of why bus drivers have so few accidents, even though they are on very busy roads up to eight hours a day, five or more days a week.
The explanation given was that they were taught to drive with "controlled aggression" (aggression is fundamentally dynamic, of course). Now, I have to say that we cynical journalists have another possible explanation as to why bus drivers never seem to be blamed for accidents. By some miracle, it seems that another bus driver always just happens to have been passing and at the time and can say in court that the pedestrian deliberately threw herself under the bus. And maybe she did. In any case, I'm a great fan of bus drivers - first up in the cold winter mornings, and dealing with a constant string of stroppy passengers (and they were unsung heroes during the Covid lockdowns). You can see why they need controlled aggression, though I think "assertiveness" is a better word.
But, actually, we all drive something like that, don't we? As you go along the road, you see everything in your peripheral vision - even that discarded McDonald's hamburger box on the pavement. But you have learned shapes to look out for above all: traffic lights, potholes, idiots with no lights on, children near the kerb, dogs with no leash on, road signs (and, all the while, listening to music on the radio). You learn sequences so you can plan ahead - slow down for that curve, grab that parking place, and so on. But despite all these distractions you are still in control. You get to your destination. It's miraculous. Yet we think a tsumego problem with 11 stones on the board is hard??!! Maybe the real problem is that we just haven't spent enough time learning about go's road signs, potholes and wobbly cyclists.
Yoon's book is a very good way to start that process. Finishing the process and ending up as 5-dan does not, of course, follow from just reading the book. It is about mastering the process. You have to do that yourself. You have to spend a lot of time "driving" on the go board. But this book is an ideal way to start.
I still have some quibbles, though! Much of the terminology will be familiar: L-groups and tripods. But I missed the J-shape! On the other hand, there is a new S-shape. I think these names are as important as road signs. I also grimaced at the grocers' English (hane's instead of hanes) and the lack of indents for new paragraphs. I also sigh at the use of "her" for White. I'm also unconvinced of the need to say "the ogeima extension from hoshi" or to hyphenate ko-threats. But I mention these things to highlight, via contrast, that, for once, the English by a non-native speaker is truly excellent.
Three sponsors are listed on the cover: Korea Sports Promotion Foundation, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Baduk Association. Has "Korea Got Talent?" Yes, yes, yes!
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RobertJasiek
) and at the time the people that made the complaint couldn't pinpoint from whence that idea came from. 