Ishida Yoshio has recently published a very interesting book called アマの知らない布石・絶対の急所 (The Absolutely Vital Points of the Fuseki that Amateurs Don't Know) on MyCom. It's in Japanese, of course, and quite difficult Japanese at that, but I would like to draw your attention to it.
First, he gives an explanation of the meaning of various approach moves to the 3-4 point, and examples of when and when not to play them. For me, this chapter is truly eye-opening - thanks to this, I'm finding out that certain things I used to believe about the fuseki were upside down.
The next chapters are about strategic themes (namely, 「地の接点」が勝負を決める, 模様の碁の急所, and 一番大きいのは「根拠の手」, which are, respectively, "The Meeting Point of Territories Decides Victory or Defeat", "The Vital Points of Moyo Go" and "The Biggest Move is Making/Taking a Base").
I cannot give a full review yet, because I haven't finished reading the book, but for now I would like to share a problem from the second chapter that I found particularly enlightening.
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- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
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Ishida says "The stones are still sparse, but it is clear that white is using a moyo strategy. To deal with this, if he is aware of the moyo, black faces a crossroads of ways for advancing and strengthening his position."
(まだ石数まらばですが、白の模様作戦が鮮明です。これに対して黒は白模様を意識するか、我が道を行き自陣を固めるの岐路です。)*
Before I give the answer, I would like to ask you what you would do here, and why? When I attempted the problem, I chose the worst out of the three possible answers
Hopefully, I learned something from the failure.
One thing I like about this book is that it stimulates you to think "between the lines". I think Ishida explains enough not to be frustratingly cryptic, but he doesn't spoonfeed you, either.
Finally, I can't help wondering if there's any way to tell if a book is ghost-written or not? I assume the little problem collections from Seibido (成美堂) such as 山下敬吾の初段の実戦詰碁 (
Yamashita Keigo's Real Game Tsumego for Shodans) are mainly the work of the backroom boys, but the MyCom series seem a touch more individualistic - for instance, Takemiya's アマが理解できない４つの常識 (The Four Pieces of Common Sense that Amateurs Can't Grasp) not only has a different vocabulary, but a different
personality. I would love to think that the MyCom series comes straight from the horses` mouths!
* If my translation was badly offbeam, please correct me
; with the one-space jump, it does look funky.