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The lives and deaths of groups is an essential part of the game of Go. Taking (or losing) stones off the board is not the main purpose but it is an exciting part of the game and can often lead to victory or defeat. It can also be one of the most frustrating aspects of the game for the developing player. As such, L&D is a vital aspect for beginning and intermediate players to get a solid grip on and even advanced players need to refine and develop their skills. Robert Jasiek’s Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics provides a tutorial for the essential methods to determine or change a position’s status between alive and dead.
This book is targeted for players in the 20k-5k range (EGF). With that in mind it marches the reader through many of the various techniques for establishing life or death in a group. Each of the eight main chapters starts with an overview of a major topic such as liberty shortages or eyespace or environment and then proceeds to break that down into several individual techniques or considerations in that field. Theory is introduced first with a few examples and then three problems are given for the reader to solve. Personally, I find this mix of example/problem to be very useful since the reader has a “general hint” based on the topic and so can focus their problem-solving to some degree as opposed to a “play somewhere” style. Players new to Go should find this especially encouraging. Many will also find this topic/problem style more productive than a “glossary of shapes” approach. Instead of memorizing set shapes, positions, and sequences, the reader refines their reading skills so they can be applied to all potential situations.
Using this style, many aspects are covered. Jasiek starts out with a rigorous definition of terms used through the book. At first, the distinctions between “lakes”, “potential eyespace”, “final eyespace”, etc. may seem overly detailed and minor, but the goal is to provide a framework that can be used to discuss the individual purpose(s) of any given move. This continues at the sub-section level with (for example) “attacking a lake” being a separate sub-section from “preventing a partition”. An impatient reader may ask, “Just show me how to kill it!”, but this level of granularity works very well in leading that same reader through the general topic step by step to build understanding and confidence.
The sets of problems in each subsection do an excellent job of demonstrating the executions of the principles just described. Jasiek includes both thorough explanations of why the correct answer is right (including possible continuations past the immediate L/D problem) and a multitude of variations on wrong plays. I found both of these to be very valuable. It is good to see the full detail on continuations after the right first move (in case the reader just got lucky with a proper initial choice but didn’t read out the whole sequence properly) and refutation of the wrong choices is essential to showing how they don’t work (under almost any possibly permutation of following plays). Players near the upper end of the suggested skill range may find a few of the problems basic, but working my way through the book, I (at 6k AGA) could only solve a few at a glance from immediate experience and/or what I consider “common knowledge”.
Another fulfilling aspect of the problem sets is that in a few cases the “correct” play is to simply play elsewhere since the status of the group cannot be changed. This bit of uncertainty forces the reader to fully read out the situation in every problem since there is a very real chance that further play will only waste a move or potential ko threats. This is an aspect I find very productive for the reader in problem books. “Forced reading” in an isolated situation (as opposed to in the heat of an actual game) helps hone the skills that all players, pro or amateur, need to continuously develop. In my opinion, spending time on this with a book directly leads to thorough and better reading on the board.
The book wraps up with some quick topics on identifying “interesting” places to play in order to trim the decision tree of full situational reading, a final problem set drawing from all the topics presented, an (much appreciated) index, and a final overview of L&D basics and a description of themes for upcoming books.
Overall, I found this book to be useful as a continuation in Go studies. The suggested skill range seems quite appropriate to me since near-beginners could be a bit overwhelmed and dan-level players should already be well-versed in these levels of evaluation and techniques. The focus on methods and theory provides a good companion to the dead shape/live shape books that are already out there. Just don’t be put off by the initial introductory terminology but instead embrace the level of detail that Jasiek uses to present the material. It will pay off in the end.
Bruce "Critic at Small" Young
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Currently reading: Plutarch, Cerebus, and D&Q 25th Anniversary
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