karaklis wrote:As you speak in "plural" it seems that you are planning more than one book for SDKs.
The current very rough planning is two books for SDKs and two more for Dans. Depending on study of sample games or conceptual separation from other book projects in the farther future, the number can vary. Please note that I have not started writing a next book yet. It is possible that I write other books in between, although the next fundamentals book is one of two most likely candidates.
I must say, I am always somewhat bemused by the popular habit of grouping DDK/SDK/Dan together as if they are a good target group for lessons. The difference between a 1k and a 9k is humongous, as is the difference between 1d and 7d or the difference between 10k and 25k.
1) Grouping DDK (above absolute beginner level) has made sense for the book's intended main readership because DDKs make pretty much the same important mistakes; mainly their frequency differs. (A few players have already learnt some particular aspects, for which they do not share the related mistakes any longer. The remaining made important mistakes are still the same.)
2) The indeed big strength differences 9k - 1k and 1d - 7d are a factor why I consider to write different volumes for low / high SDK and low / high dan as core readerships.
After reading the first paragraph of the sample you provided, I would never recommend this book to anyone. Less broken english more getting to the point please.
Also, let me know when one of the students of your teaching methods become a professional so L19 can award you with a "Greatest Go Teacher Ever" award.
Time wrote:Also, let me know when one of the students of your teaching methods become a professional so L19 can award you with a "Greatest Go Teacher Ever" award.
Yawn!, please get on with your life. And thanks for the review.
Time wrote:After reading the first paragraph of the sample you provided, I would never recommend this book to anyone. Less broken english more getting to the point please.
I wonder whether you’d also write such a disgustingrespectful comment if an Asian author wrote a Go book and decided to publish it in less than perfect English.
Also, let me know when one of the students of your teaching methods become a professional so L19 can award you with a "Greatest Go Teacher Ever" award.
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali
Time wrote:After reading the first paragraph of the sample you provided, I would never recommend this book to anyone. Less broken english more getting to the point please.
I wonder whether you’d also write such a disgustingrespectful comment if an Asian author wrote a Go book and decided to publish it in less than perfect English.
No reason to jump the fences. It's fair to point out (and valid imho). If you find such things urksome you might not want to buy the book (and if you do, who wrote the book is irrelevant).
The diagrams seem very well done, from what I can see from the sample pages.
Time wrote:After reading the first paragraph of the sample you provided, I would never recommend this book to anyone. Less broken english more getting to the point please.
I wonder whether you’d also write such a disgustingrespectful comment if an Asian author wrote a Go book and decided to publish it in less than perfect English.
No reason to jump the fences. It's fair to point out (and valid imho). If you find such things urksome you might not want to buy the book (and if you do, who wrote the book is irrelevant).
The diagrams seem very well done, from what I can see from the sample pages.
I’m not quite sure whom you replied to … (I don’t know whether “jump the fences” is some idiomatic phrase), but FWIW, I recommend the book (at least for people of my current rank).
Greetings, Tom
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali
I've just read this book and thought I'd put my short review on here.
This is a review of the book 'First Fundamentals' by Robert Jasiek.
The aim of this book is to help beginners to become intermediate players in as little time as possible. It's also helpful for intermediate players that are still making basic mistakes. It fulfils this goal by organising examples of the moves beginners make into sections covering each fundamental principle. The examples also explain why the move/plan is bad. At the end of each section are some problems for the reader to solve. Usefully the answers follow, rather than being in the back of the book which does save time by not having to keep flipping to the back. The sections themselves are prefaced by parables which act as a metaphor for the underlying concepts. I found them useful as a mnemonic device and they were a nice interlude between the principles for the mind to take a breather. The stories themselves I thought were funny, original and well written. Robert has a good sense of humour (somewhat dry!) which comes across in these stories as well as in the principles.
This is a very condensed book with a lot of information contained within its pages. If you're a beginner you'll probably want to read and re-read sections many times, perhaps concentrating on one area at a time so as not to be overwhelmed. Once you've read the principles you can just look at the examples as reminders for the principles which may make further passes quicker to process. I found I went from looking at the examples in the book to then finding examples from my own games quite naturally and without conscious effort. It was just a natural progression and shows that, by learning from both the principles and their examples, applying them works rather well.
A nice side effect of reading this book has meant that it's made other Go literature more accessible. I've used this as a reference book to go to when other books talk about, say, direction of play. Almost like a handbook. Mainly because other books talk about these ideas but aren't quite so rich with the examples or overuse of foreign Go terms which the beginner will also be only just learning.
The diagrams themselves are well presented and clear. I like the fact that only enough information to show the mistake is given. This keeps the examples as simple as possible which makes them easier to read and understand.
The actual principles are written concisely, logically, and use consistent language. This does make the book read like a set of rules and will probably appeal more to logically minded people.
Various statistics appear throughout the sections. An example being 'Reading mistakes occur in 80% of every beginner's games, of which most have several mistakes'. I thought an improvement here would be some way of comparing/ranking them all together. A surprising statistic for me was how many endgame points are wasted away in a typical beginner game.
As a book written for beginners it was easy to relate to the examples. The flip side is that realising why they're mistakes also enables you to punish these mistakes when made against you by your opponent. Beginners usually try and find beginner opponents with whom to play! I think at the point where you're doing this, it's safe to say the book has worked!
I hope this review is of help to people considering buying this book.
