Let me start by saying thank you for doing this for the community. Your text is well-written and the selection of material is a perfect fit for beginners. Everything that is mentioned below are just some personal thoughts on your manuscript, and you are free to disagree with every single one of them. I hope this helps you make the text even better.
Your rankAround KGS 7k
If the book was too simple/too complicated for youThe text was good, and the selection of the material was excellent. I especially liked that you included the importance of cutting and connecting at the start of the connection tesuji. If I'd have to point out something, I think the tempo might just be slightly (ever so slightly) too fast for beginners who still need to learn about ladders and nets. You could flesh out the text with a little more examples, and take the explanation a little slower, perhaps?
If any sections were too boringNo, Well-written, concise. Quite the opposite of boring (see above). I like the occasional metaphor (and will now hear the kraken stirring in the depths, whenever I spot a snapback ^^)
If there's anything you think it should have covered but didn't- in the part about ladder breakers, the text is really concise, and it's a perfect description if you already know what ladder breakers look like in an actual game, perhaps include an extra example diagram of a wholeboard position, name the important stones a, b, c and refer to these in the description, this might make the text easier to understand. There's already a diagram of the failed ladder, but this section seemed kind of light on visual feedback for beginners.
- in the exercise diagrams on p6 and p7, the problems don't show the edge of the board, while the solution does. Perhaps make this more uniform?
- in the part about connecting with a solid or hanging connection, you list some of the options rather objectively, but don't really say when one or the other type is more beneficial. Personally, I've found that going for the solid connection instead of always going for the hanging connection (as many beginners do) has helped my game quite a lot. Perhaps you should emphasize that the white forcing moves can be quite sever on black, and that therefore it is better to solidly connect one side? Like you did with the bamboo joint, where you explained why the bamboo joint is better than the empty triangle.
- Overall I must say the selection of the material is really, really good, and shows you remember your own struggle to become stronger very well. It are exactly the tesuji presented here which have helped me gain quite a few stones when I started out. Good job!
- I was going to say, add some references to other books, and then I got to the last page. You have it all covered.
If any of the examples were awful- Personally, the only example which bothered me a bit was that of the joseki sequence to explain the difference in types of connections. It's a good example, sure, but I might not include joseki sequences in a book about tesuji for beginners. Just a personal preference though, and as said before, it's not a bad example at all, just something I remember going "huh?" about when I encountered it in your text.
Any other commentsA few things I noticed about the layout. Since this is an early draft, it might not be terribly important to you, so feel free to discard the following comments:
- Perhaps try a different font? I tried changing the pdf size from anywhere between 75-200%, but the font never quite looked crisp. A somewhat blurry font (it seemed more like an aliasing problem) could significantly hamper people's interest to keep reading the text. It's much more exhausting.
- some of the lines in the diagrams seem not properly aligned (depending on what size you view the pdf at, there's some problems in the atari, hane, keima, ogeima diagrams on p3)
- p14 "We will also
cover some cover some common mistakes beginners make," you seem to have some déja-vu action going on here.
- In position 3 for the endgame, it might be a good idea to add the correct move for white in this situation:
the parabola (I didn't know what it was called, so I just searched the position on SL, and found this. Is this shape actually called a parabola? )
- "monkeys are stronger than they look and they will steal your fruit." Excellent, sir. Most excellent ^^
It is a far more difficult task than it initially appears because we often have forgotton how we learned it.
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I'm not sure how/if to approach jumps, as it feels like it gets advanced very quickly. Any ideas anyone?