Seeking opinion about books

[karaklis]

go through this free tsumego collection ten times http://tsumego.tasuki.org/cho-1-elementary.pdf
...
I suspect most of the problems from "1001 Life & Death Problems" or "Get Strong at Tesuji" would be to difficult for him.

When I was at his level, I just got to problem 26 or 29 of the online collection and had to give up, because no solution was given. Shortly after that I started with "1001 L&D Problems" and since the solutions were given, I quickly learnt the basic techniques that are used to solve L&D problems. Just for fun I have worked through the online collection again, and it was quite easy, a few minutes for the first 60 or so problems.

Many of the problems of the online collection are the same as in "1001 L&D Problems", so I'd rather recommend the latter.

[judicata]

But I don't know what your first statement is based on

oops, sorry. I meant the books he mentioned. Although the same applies to many other recommendations.

A little metaphor:
Suppose you want to learn French. How would you go about it? You could get a bunch of grammar books and dictionaries, but I doubt you will be able to speak French any time soon. This is not how most people learn to speak a language.

That makes more sense, though I still somewhat disagree. First, I completely agree that, at some point, you must play with stronger players and review games to progress. But books can help you get stronger. The French analogy isn't completely applicable; for example, you can learn how to write better from studying books (e.g. grammar and style), and you can learn math from books. But I think our disagreements are minor.

[Numsgil]

Wilcox has some good stuff I like to pimp out on the forums since I'm not sure they have much exposure and I've found them really useful. He likes to present simple rules that are easy to follow, without emphasis on complex reading, so they'd be doubly especially useful as a DDK. Most of the stuff in these books isn't explained elsewhere, or is explained far less clear cut. He's a programmer, and I'm a programmer, so I think that's a lot of why I found it easy to go through. Most go books I have are not nearly as clearcut with what they're trying to show.

I got the EZ-GO book (it comes as a PDF), and the sector and contact fights (they come as software. Really an interactive book with tests and quizes to see if you understand the material), and I think all three are solid products and really explained a lot of things I'd been wondering about and a lot of things I didn't even know I didn't know.

...

Opening Theory Made Easy - Get this. This was my first book. I was maybe 13k at the time, and I found it incredibly useful. It's not very long, and the principles are very accessible to DDK.

Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go - You won't get much out of this until you're stronger (I find it almost reasonable to go through at my level. It was too hard when I first got it). Except that it is entertaining to read.

Anyway, those are all theory books. You need to do problems too, but those are less fun to talk about

[palapiku]

The stronger I get (4k now), the more I am convinced that the best way to improve, at least until dan level, is by improving your reading.

Doing other stuff might be more fun, and it might get you a little stronger, but it kinda misses the point of what go is all about. And it gives you a false confidence of thinking you know what you're doing. This held me back for a long time.

Any strategic considerations you need you will very quickly learn by getting a couple of your games reviewed by stronger players.

[kgsbaduk]

If you have money its better to buy 1 year membership in Guo Juan's audio lectures. http://internetgoschool.com there are plenty of very interesting topics. I bought it 2 or 3 weeks ago and i very much stonger now. Also i can understand much more from games strong dans. Also i do some tsumegos

[Joaz Banbeck]

[admin]

Since the reading/tactics vs theory/strategy discussion had completely taken over the thread, I moved it to its own thread: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1470

[/admin]

[tj86430]

A little metaphor:
Suppose you want to learn French. How would you go about it? You could get a bunch of grammar books and dictionaries, but I doubt you will be able to speak French any time soon. This is not how most people learn to speak a language.

Although totally OT, I'd like to comment on this. If you are talking about French specifically (or many other languages, but not nearly all), you have a point, because it can be very hard to learn pronunciation from a book. However, this also depends on your own background, but e.g. for me it is very difficult. OTOH, there are other languages, where the pronunciation is very straightforward and can be learned easily (for me e.g. Italian is such a language, I bet I could learn basic Italian from a book and be able to even speak and understand it). I get your general idea, but it greatly depends.

[palapiku]

You know what go is all about? Do you intend to enlighten us all with your glorious wisdom or shall we be doomed forever to crawl like maggots before your feet...

Sure. Go is about black and white stones played consecutively on a board, in a way which maximizes the final score.

I would think that this false feeling of control is more likely to come if you read a lot in your games. Don't read and don't think during your games and you will find that your confidence disappears.

It's not false if you win

[clemi]

Hello all,

if you want to discover a lot of practical things for not too expensive, the second book of go is wonderful.
For me, you can learn a whole lot until you reach KGS dan level !

http://www.kiseido.com/Begin2.htm#K31

Then, for the reading skills, these two other books are must have :

The tsumegos, so much alive and dead shapes you can't imagine :
http://www.kiseido.com/Begin3.htm#K13

The tesujis, things you would never play :
http://www.kiseido.com/Begin3.htm#K12

If you master these, you will be pretty strong !

[walleye]

it can be very hard to learn pronunciation from a book. However, this also depends on your own background

You raise some good points, but I wasn't talking about pronunciation at all. What I had in mind was fluency. Even if you know the words and the correct grammar, you can still put them together in a way that native speakers will find very awkward and even wrong. Something similar happens in Go. When I play Go with novices I often see them make moves that I think are completely off the mark. This happens because they are not fluent in Go. What do they need to do to improve their fluency? I believe the thing that will work for most people is 1) to have lots of practice and 2) to have your errors corrected by someone who is already fluent. That's why I recommend doing tsumego and getting your games reviewed.

Books might be useful but most of the stuff I read in books never happened in my games.
On the other hand, a game review (even a short one) was always very useful because it addressed my weaknesses and misunderstandings directly.

[ljl]

Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go used to be my absolute favorite book on an over all explination of the game. I reread it a couple of times a year.

Fundamental Principles of Go Yi-lun Yang (slate and shell) has taken its place.