Life In 19x19

A friend from the Go club bought it and enjoyed it, but he is quite a bit stronger than us, something like KGS 1-2D.

Still a long way to go for that Anyway, I saw Kamakura in my local Go shop, so I may check it some day or another (I got Get Strong at Joseki 1 that day)

p2501 wrote:I strongly recommend Yuan Zhou's books - they are my most favorite go books.

Why? For which ranks? Is there more than teaching by examples in them?

RobertJasiek wrote:

p2501 wrote:I strongly recommend Yuan Zhou's books - they are my most favorite go books.

Why? For which ranks? Is there more than teaching by examples in them?

I don't feel qualified to say for which ranks it's best. I've read them from when I was 11 to 4 kyu and enjoyed them very much. Also, I don't think their major purpose is to advance your playing ability - they have enhanced my understanding of the game, but probably didn't get me as much further as tsumego books probably would have. But I enjoyed the game through them more than any other book I have. 'Learning From Pro Games' is my favorite, 'Master Play: Seven Top Pros' comes second and 'The Consultants' is next best in my opinion. Those books take you on a journey deep into the rabbit hole that is pro play (at least to me) without you ever losing the red line. I felt I saw and understood all the nuances that were in those particular games (not claiming that I did, I _felt_ I did).
Bottom line is, I personally enjoyed them more than any other go book I've read so far.

Yuan Zhou: Learning from Pro Games was a present i got from my last tournament. In this genre ( commentened pro games ) it is the first book that was useful for me.
The comments are written for kyu playes. Other books with their comments are usually over my head. In this book you get a new diagram every five moves in average ( or even less ), so you can easily read through the book without a board. Yuan Zhou explanations a very clear and instructive.
Get this book if you are interested to learn something, get a book from J.F. for a lesson in history.

p2501 wrote:I felt I saw and understood all the nuances that were in those particular games

On your way to mid dan level, you will experience several times the feeling "understand all", then "understand nothing", then vice versa:)

Nagilum wrote:Yuan Zhou explanations a very clear and instructive.

Please give an example! Some years ago I looked into Understanding How to Play Go for about half an hour, but did not get this impression. Is that because he writes so much for kyus that dans can be disappointed?

When I was in the SDK range in 1993, the common advice was: "Wait until about 3 kyu before you start studying pro games!" Well, I started as 5 kyu with the books existing then: Invincible, 1971 Honinbo, Appreciating Famous Games, a bit later 1992 Tournament Go. The comments were easy enough, but I did not learn much from such books; they are much stronger at entertainment. Now I wonder: How do you compare Yuan's comments to such books? Do they make appreciating pro games feasible for players from, say, (also) 10 to 5 kyu?

Get this book if you are interested to learn something, get a book from J.F. for a lesson in history.

If you want to learn something, read go theory books.

I agree with Robert, i don't think one can improve much from reading commentaries of pro games. But i still like reading such books, because they are interesting, one can at least get a slight idea about how professionals think, and thus, understand pro games better.
I read Yuan Zhou's books on playing styles, i liked them, but i like Fairbairn's books better, because you'll also learn something about history, and, more importantly, commentaries are very thorough (more detailed than Yuan's).

kitanifan wrote:i don't think one can improve much from reading commentaries of pro games. [...] commentaries are very thorough (more detailed

Actually I think that in principle improving significantly from commentaries on pro games is possible but requires a considerably greater detail than seen in books so far plus at least sketches of generalised go theory. Something like providing a thorough prositional analysis every fifth move etc. So in practice we (occasionally) see the inverse approach: go theory books with some pro game move examples in them.