In response to SoDesuNe's original post, a couple thoughts.

- The James Davies series is significantly under represented. A&D is of course the most important single book for a kyu player to read, but his books on Life and Death and The Endgame are also extremely important. Neither seems quite as exciting as A&D, but they are both are foundational works and should be in your intermediate section.

- Tesuij & Anti-suji by Sakata is a book which is going out of print (if not already there), but it's the best tesuji book I've seen. At first I was going to say intermediate, but really 1-5k is probably more accurate.

- Invincible is a good book, but should definitely not be in the kyu section. It is full of really advanced analysis.

- Reducing Territorial Frameworks by Fujisawa belongs in the 1-5k category, and can be seen as a (partial) follow up to A&D. I consider this essential reading.

- Keishi & Uchikomi by Iwamoto is a dan-level follow up to Reducing Territorial Frameworks, though it could go in the optional category.

- Go Seigen's A way of play for the 21st century is a very good dan level fuseki book

- I'd knock Attack and Kill off the list, it just had specific examples which I didn't find helpful.

- Az

I love Tesuji and Anti-Suji of Go. A real shame it's out of print. I particularly like the fact that a lot of the tesuji are about making good shape, not about killing or separating.

I just read it last weekend, but did not work through any of the variations on a board. At 8k, I found the first few sections on fuseki and how the stones radiate power to be mostly understandable. It seems like a book that is all over the place in terms of required strength. The author goes off for several pages at a time on variations that I'm not sure are useful to me at my level.

I enjoyed it the first time through, and expect to read it again when I have time to go through it with a board.

I found the opening sections of the book to be stuff I already knew and understood reasonably well, though some of the variations were insightful. Much of the book is the sort of stuff that "makes sense" to me intuitively, but is deep and clever in ways I would fail to find myself in games. I would say it's 5k - 3d+

That sounds awesome! I need to get that one. Just to be sure, it's Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go, right?

At your level, undoubtly. There may be others that fits, but this one will fit

I didn't get much out if Kageyama's book. The only thing I learned was to read out ladders properly. And indeed that helped me in a couple of matches. But I am not sure whether it's worth to purchase that book for this tiny bit of knowledge. When I read it I was around 15-17 kyu. I'll give it a try again soon and let's see what I will get out of it.

A question to those who got something out of that book:
What exactly did you get out of it, and what was your strength at that time?

I still think it's an "attitude to become strong" book, more than a "get stronger" book. But that's what MadsS seems to want.

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a1h1 [1d]: You just need to curse the gods and defend.
Good Go = Shape.
Associação Portuguesa de Go

I first read it I think mid SDK, and have read it probably 5 or 6 times since then. What did I get out of it?

1) Read. Don't assume good instinct on whether something works or play purely on gut. Read. If it works, play it, if it doesn't, don't.
2) Don't be frightened to play a slow looking move if it is a proper move. If an enemy stone in your territory has bad aji left, then either you can kill it on a big scale without doing anything locally, or play a move that kills the aji outright - don't play some half way in between move.
3) The race to get ahead is crucial. Do it as soon as you can, extending / being pushed just because you can do it safely is unacceptable. The second you can jump ahead, you jump ahead.
4) Don't be frightened to give up the corner for thickness.
5) Territory isn't territory just because there are a few stones scattered around.
6) Design a strategy around the game status. If you are ahead, play accordingly. If you are behind, play accordingly, but don't just play moves without assessing the current score balance first.

A few more things too, but those are the only things that come to mind so far.

I'm going through this book now (9k AGA) and I'm finding it to be a valuable and enjoyable read. It's insightful and inspiring for determining the best types of moves to play. It also does a good job at explaining/reminding the importance of position assessment and how locally good moves can destroy a whole board position. The couple cases that stick out to me are things like "'A' is normally sabaki, but in this case it wrecks the side, so 'B' is better (and here is why)" and "'A' gives life in the corner, but allows no targets for the future, which 'B' does allow (and here is why)"

I read it recently and it gave me a lot actually. I went from strong 2k/ weak 1k to able to have close games with 2-3 dan in like two or three weeks! I see the game in a different light now. It could also have to do with motivation though But it is easily the best book I have read

Wow, I wouldn't suspect it could have such impact when already 1k ! I have to reread it

As to my concern, I read it when around 15k, and I think it took a great part at making me around 10k (slowly, but I'm slow anyway). As I said, my 3 favorite books are this one, Attack and Defense, and Making Good Shape.

Lessons in the Fundamentals suggests which topics to study while Joseki Vol. 1 Fundamentals does study in detail those of the topics closely related to joseki. My book can also be considered to override Direction of Play and teaches more principles on some topics in greater detail and accuracy than Fundamental Principles of Go.

The way I look at Kageyama's "Lessons" is this: if you like motivational-type books, you'll probably love Lessons. If you don't, you'll wonder what all the fuss is about.

Personally, I never particularly cared for Lessons (nor do I like motivational books), but I can see why others would like it.

Helel, I hope this summer or autumn.

Btw, I wouldn't class ABCs of Attack and Defence as advanced. I would say a 10-15k could read it and appreciate it in its entirety. I think it has some application to lower kyus as well, in fact it's a really nice clear book for anyone to read. Overall though I would say the material is more elementary than that found in Attack and Defence.

I Found Frickensweat's comments (GD) on the subject illuminating:


"I have read both of these books plus ABC's of Attack and Defense and Break Through to Shodan.

I did not read them in this oder but here is what I would think would be appropriate or how I wish I would have read them.

Attack and Defense- great for looking at the tools or ideas that you need to have.

ABC's of Attack and Defense- Puts the above into real game situation using 6-3 stone handi cap games.

Kato's Attack and Kill- Gives more indepth looks into attacking with the knights move and capping plays.

Break Through to Shodan- expands on ABC's using primarily 3 stone handicap games."


Anyway, I've only read a couple beginner books so far, but this thread has been helpful in sorting out what books might be best to read next.

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Where've you been? Zatoichi could slice the board in half, put it back together again and rearrange the position so fast that no-one even knew he'd drawn his sword - and he was blind. ~ John Fairbairn

C'mon guys, you couldn't have read Kageyama and haven't noticed his awful style. I think he is trying to copy Charlie Chaplin, to make his book funny and the result is a total crap. His book is worth only for my wood - burner.

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Stefany, web programmer

the book is good if there are so many people that enjoy it. your opinion is a complete different thing, and that book helped a lot players to improve. you are in no position to make such a claim. I mean, wtf. Charlie Chaplin? as far as I can remember, most of Chaplin movies dont even have words, so I do not see a book copying them. only my opinion btw.

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The opinions about this book are highly split. I have read it once as DDK and once as SDK - the second time to check whether I would change my mind about this book. I didn't, I still don't like it, though there are some parts that are better than others. I liked particularly the parofessionals' match at the end of the book (Kageyama's "master piece"). As for the other parts there are other books that explain the relative topic much better. And apart from the beginning of the book (about ladders and nets) this is not appropriate for beginners either. This book rather seems to be designed to relax and get amused than to extract knowledge from it that could help you with your go play.