Life In 19x19

JoeS1 wrote:if you want to ask dan level players for their thoughts on [...] books to get at your level, you get no answer.

While undoubtably this might be so for some dans, other dans have provided and provide answers. E.g., I (5 dan), have given public and private answers, ca. 50 reviews (on books by other authors) and information on go books privately and publicly for 21 years, as far as my time allows. See, e.g.,
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/isbn.html
http://www.gobooks.info/jasiek/
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/books.html

A lot of people have to resort to books

Yes, and they help a lot. E.g., they were the most important factor for improvement from 10 kyu to 5 dan, among that to 3 dan within 17 months. Do not complain about books but welcome them! :)

While there are plenty of books around the beginner level, once you start to approach shodan level there become fewer and fewer books to get that help explore and master the basics.

Right, and it gets worse for dan players and especially strong dans.

However, the situation today is very much better than that during the early 90s.

English books for the basics for players approaching 1 dan level:
- Tactical Reading
- Positional Judgement 1 - Territory
- Positional Judgement 2 - Dynamics
- Endgame 1 - Fundamentals
- Fighting Fundamentals
- Joseki 1 - Fundamentals
- Joseki 2 - Strategy
- Joseki 3 - Dictionary
- Capturing Races 1 - Two Basic Groups
- Fuseki Dictionary (Rin Kaiho) (a few volumes)
- Reducing Territorial Frameworks
- First Fundamentals (only if still stuck at 4 kyu or below)
- Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go (for its motivational aspect)
- Fundamental Principles of Go
- Strategic Concepts of Go (aka Basics of Go Strategy)
- Attack and Defense
- various books on life and death (such as All About Life and Death 1 + 2, Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics)
- various books on tesujis
- a book on haengma (I forgot which Korean title was translated)
- etc.

English books (also very suitable) for dans (and partly up to high dans = *):
- Tactical Reading
- Positional Judgement 1 - Territory
- Positional Judgement 2 - Dynamics (*)
- Fighting Fundamentals (*)
- Joseki 2 - Strategy
- Joseki 3 - Dictionary
- Capturing Races 1 - Two Basic Groups (*)
- Fuseki Dictionary (Rin Kaiho) (a few volumes)
- etc. (not many, unfortunately)

That's what I think is key books that spend the entire book focusing on a concept, like aji, or sabaki, or invasion, etc. So that you can learn and master it. Not like the beginner books that only spend a chapter and a few examples on it.

There are also books for strong players conveying various topics. OC, more often you are right.

Why aren't they and books like this translated to English for the West?

Because demand is restricted. If everybody bought what they need as books for their improvement, you would see many more English books and translations of Asian books into English.

Kiseido [...] I haven't read these books, but from the few reviews I've read they aren't very good.

They are books with light and, IMO, too little contents. Reading without investing effort meets the desire of some readers. Players knowing that effort can generate a much greater impact on improvement on average might look for books by other publishers.

Seems like a no brainer to me to make money.

Go book business is the art of surviving rather than the source of easy money.

Another thing with intermediate and advanced books, is there aren't very many reviews on them.

Actually, this is so for by far most specialised books on any topics - not just advanced go books. There is only one way out: read and review them! (If you are not strong enough to fully appreciate their contents yet, become a strong dan, then read and review...)

One or two doesn't really inspire confidence,

What is your problem? There are circa half a dozen of English go book authors. From each, buy the presumably most suitable book for you. Either the author meets, or does not meet, your expectations. If you do not know which would be the most suitable book for you, ask the authors (or publishers).

especially when you have people around 5kyu to 8kyu typically doing the reviews.

So trust yourself more - read a sample selection of books!

It would be nice if we had dans regularly reviewing books

Yes, but... As somebody belonging to those dan reviewers, I have to tell you that I only infrequently spend money on books for the sole purpose of reviewing them. The number of new books with relevant contents for me is very small. Nevertheless, I keep an average of circa two go book reviews per year. If you want to see more reviews by (high) dans, a) organise sponsorship for their review copy purchases, b) motivate more authors to write (high) dan contents and c) convince other publishers to provide more review copies to (high) dans.

that way we had more of a consensus on what books to get at each level,

Consensus will not be reached because opinions differ too greatly.

how books compare to each other

Read my related opinions, if you can find them.

and what books really stand out.

By which criteria? :) See, e.g., my rating list but be aware that opinions differ.

It would be really great if Pros could get a chance to take a look at many of our books and give their recommendations as well.

Didn't Haijin Lee start videos on that? But frankly, a well reasoned review is worth much more than one written by a high rank.

I know some of the older books from the 60s and 70s were high level

English books? Uhm, only Mathematical Go Endgames, 'Winning Ways' and 'On Numbers and Games', but they are so high level I need to read them twice again to actually understand all the contents;)

as there is so much knowledge and so many concepts out there on it.

Accurate.

Shenoute wrote: I don't think there's anything to be learned about go that cannot be learned from older books.

Sorry, but you miss about everything. E.g., roughly 50% of the theory in my 13 books is very important knowledge and cannot be learned from older books. My verbal knowledge contains more than 10 times as much very important knowledge that cannot be learned from older books.

Thanks for this interesting post. Can you indicate if the ranks you use are rather AGA or EGF?

EGF

I didn't realize those links you posted were threads you created for me. I thought they were just posts you made on the subject in the past that you were linking to. I'm still reading through that thread to see what everyone has said in the past.

The reason I don't like to just purchase books with one or two reviews, is because that isn't enough to come to a consensus and I don't like wasting money on books that don't help much. I've bought some somewhat redundant books in the past that were mostly a waste.

I know demand is restricted. But my point was it appears some amateurs are publishing new books on KGS with that Road to Shodan series. And if that's the case, then why not instead translate popular books from the East? I think the demand would be there for books around 5 kyu to 1+ shodan. I thought the road to shodan series was aimed at SDK level.

I'm aware of your books and your reviews. Along with I think David Carlton was the other guy who use to review books on the same site as you. I can't always tell if a book is good just from reading some excerpts from it. Wish I could, but I'm not an expert. That's why I rely on other's reviews

I've seen some of the Hajin videos. She's reviewed a few books, but they were sent to her for free, and I don't think she is going to really say anything bad about them. I'm more interested in how the books compare to other English books and what level they are, and perhaps how they compare to the books or what type of books pros studied when learning Go at the amateur level. But I don't remember them answering those questions. It may be difficult for them to judge because they are so far ahead as pros.

On the topic of me purchasing books: I'm kind of going through depression and other stuff right now. I'm not that interested in purchasing books. I don't even know if I'm interested in studying and getting back into playing go regularly. I just posted my thoughts on the subject, because the thread was a good question, and I have had those thoughts for a long time, and I thought the ideas might be helpful for the community if people could come together more, share more information, increase the levels of the average amateurs, review books some more, and ultimately help grow the community that way. Because people are more likely to get frustrated and give up if they can't improve even though they are putting effort into it.

It's kind of late and I'm going to go to sleep. I'll read the other threads and reply later. I just had no idea they were threads asking me questions and with my name on them.

JoeS1 wrote:why not instead translate popular books from the East?

Typically, Eastern and Western books have different contents and / or teaching style, although it varies for different authors and there are exceptions. On average, Kiseido is very much closer in contents and teaching style to Eastern books than me. My books also heavily rely on theory even where Eastern books lack (parts of) it, and I do the necessary research to fill the huge gaps. Kiseido books are often so much interchangeable with Eastern books that your question becomes applicable to Kiseido. Consider its commercial interest: publishing its own books can often generate more income than translating Eastern books.

That's why I just want an intermediate and/or an advanced set of books that cover everything.

While a series title (of the kind "1 dan in 1 week") and the variety of its book titles can easily pretend to cover everything, there is no such series whose contents covers everything. This is so because writing contents about everything needed takes VERY much time. I try, but I cannot write books as fast as I wish. E.g., I have not found time to write opening books.

That's why I picked up that idea about books focusing on one or two concepts and delving deeply into it so you could master it.

As explained earlier, ONLY a few concepts are insufficient. That said, choose reading, life+death, fighting, using influence (basics), and the fundamentals as topics.

EDIT: OC, you also need to avoid terrible joseki, opening and endgame mistakes.

JoeS1 wrote:I also guess that Lessons of Fundamentals in Go got it in my head that I needed to practice the fundamentals regularly to master them. I've been hunting down looking for any book series that discusses them in depthly so I can master them to no avail.

See the first message in this thread.

Quotation reference:
http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewto ... 47#p212147

JoeS1 wrote:How do these fundamentals books compare to each other?

Strategic Concepts of Go
Basics of Go Strategy
Fundamental Principles of Go

These all seem like intermediate level books while Lessons of Fundamentals of Go appears to be more of a beginner book, so curious how these books compare to each other.

Strategic Concepts of Go shortly informally explains the 8 strategic concepts miai [= equal options], aji, kikashi [= forcing moves], thickness, korigatachi [= overconcentration, which is a special aspect of efficiency], sabaki [= light shape creation], furikawari [= exchange], and yosu-miru [= test moves] and has a second half with problems.

The Basics of Go Strategy is a later renaming (revision?) of Strategic Concepts of Go, now with 8 strategic concepts grouped in the chapters aji, forcing moves, probing moves, attacking heavy stones, light stones and sabaki, junk stones, key stones, thickness. The new title is an outrageous euphemism because the book a) discusses only a small fraction of all strategic concepts, b) mostly misses strategic planning, c) misses many other aspects of go strategy. (If you have The Basics of Go Strategy, you do not need the out of print Strategic Concepts of Go.)

Fundamental Principles of Go (earlier carrying the outrageous title The Fundamental Principles of Go) is a comparatively small "random" selection of four topics (opening, efficiency, joseki, invasion + reduction) and their selective, somewhat arbitrary, basic discussion. An advantage of the book is its use of principles to distill some generally applicable knowledge.

Strategic Concepts of Go (aka The Basics of Go Strategy) versus Fundamental Principles of Go can be compared as follows: their discussed topics mostly differs; the latter contains relatively more of generally applicable advice.

If the contents is new to the reader, both books are useful to very useful. However, your question for comparing these books overlooks other related books:

Compared to the two books above, Joseki 2 - Strategy explains many more strategic concepts (and, e.g., efficiency in more detail), strategic planning, quite a few other aspects of go strategy, aspects of analysis and very many principles (and methods and values) with generally applicable knowledge. The disadvantage is having only few examples per general advice.

Compared to Fundamental Principles of Go, Joseki 1 - Fundamentals has a more comprehensive compilation of generally applicable principles for the topic of josekis and explains further fundamental topics of josekis (e.g. types of moves). For the other topics of Fundamental Principles of Go (opening, efficiency, invasion + reduction), other books can also be considered.

In particular, the topic of invasion + reduction is, among many other things, also discussed, e.g., in Fighting Fundamentals and 'Attack and Defense'. There is really no single, definite English book fully covering (the basics of) invasion + reduction yet. Therefore, the best one can do is reading several sources. (Needless to say, there are also advanced books discussing fundamental aspects of the topic, such as Posititional Judgement 2 - Dynamics.)

My recommendation: read all the mentioned books (except for the renamed title). They all shine brightly among the heap of often much less interesting books. If you really think you have to save money, any choice has its advantages and disadvantages: less contents might be easier to digest, much contents gives the reader much if he is willing to invest the effort needed for improving anyway.

EDIT: Lessons of Fundamentals of Go gives the reader a great motivation to study the fundamentals seriously but, to simplify, does not teach any fundamentals itself. The book leaves that task to other books or verbal heritage of go knowledge.

I own Strategic Concepts of Go already. I knew Basics of Go strategy was an update, just not sure if it was better or improved on Strategic Concepts at all and was better to get. I've seen some talk about Fundamental Principles of Go, but not sure if it was worth getting. Really I'm just not sure either way and tired of putting so much time into trying to guess what books to get. It gets too frustrating and I'm not confident in getting any new books anymore. I know you're just trying to sell your books, but if they're so good there should be more reviews, more talk about them as well. I've tried doing so much research in the past to look for reviews on various parts of the web. I'm just going to take a break from it because there just isn't enough of a consensus to lean one way or another on books. I thought this subject would spark more debate too but it didn't. I'm just going to continue mostly replaying pro games I guess.

JoeS1 wrote:if they're so good there should be more reviews, more talk about them as well.

In theory, yes. In practice, e.g., Attack and Defense has been in print for over 40 years equally well distributed in North America and Europe for a comparatively low price. This gives the book roughly 10 times the time, 2 times the distribution and 2 times the incentive to buy in view of the price (per book, because per word or diagram is easily overlooked) so altogether 10*2*2 = 40 times better chances for more reviews or talk than my average book. Nevertheless, even for so very broadly distributed books, there are very few reviews and rather little talk. What you see here is that, in general, appreciation for go books is embarrassingly marginal.

RobertJasiek wrote: In theory, yes. In practice, e.g., Attack and Defense has been in print for over 40 years equally well distributed in North America and Europe for a comparatively low price. This gives the book roughly 10 times the time, 2 times the distribution and 2 times the incentive to buy in view of the price (per book, because per word or diagram is easily overlooked) so altogether 10*2*2 = 40 times better chances for more reviews or talk than my average book. Nevertheless, even for so very broadly distributed books, there are very few reviews and rather little talk. What you see here is that, in general, appreciation for go books is embarrassingly marginal.

Has it occurred to you that your books may have little exposure, but you have a lot of exposure as a person?

My first encounter with your name was the description of your rule dispute with Csaba Mero. The SL description of the rule dispute and your posts there and your recent posts here do not make me inclined to buy your books because it suggests to me that you confuse understanding with axiomatic foundation. That may be wrong but this is the impression that you make with your public presentation of yourself.

Gotraskhalana wrote:you confuse understanding with axiomatic foundation. That may be wrong but this is the impression that you make with your public presentation of yourself.

I do not confuse understanding with axiomatic foundation.

There are uses for axioms and times when I study or present them. In particular, they are useful for unambiguous rules and useful for building on them to get clear definitions of basic go terms. Unclear, ambiguous gp terms have been one of the greatest hurdles for my improvement. Clarifying go terms has been very useful for improving my understanding of go theory, becoming fluent in researching in go theory and providing clear explanations helping readers and pupils with their improvement.

There are uses for understanding and times when I study or present it. Two major types of presentation must be considered: free versus commercial (in books or paid teaching). In the commercial writing and explanation, I spend very much time on explainings things for the good understanding of the paying audience. In free presentations, my time spent for the same amount of writing is a small and often very small fraction of the time spent for commercial purposes: 1/10 to 1/1000.

Many readers in the web have an expectation of same quality as to clarity of understanding by non-experts or kyus. I cannot fulfil that because I cannot spend the same time.

It is your decision to judge my presentation only from my free contributions, but (except for samples or intermediate quality of presentation) you do not see the kind and level of understanding I provide in commercial contributions.

Regardless, even in free contributions, I regularly discuss aspects of understanding. Read carefully and you can notice such, e.g., in a message today.

I am rather surprised by this answer as you seem to misinterpret most of my words.

I talk about the "public presentation of yourself", and you seem to interpret this as critique on your presentation of contents as opposed to the content.

I talk about your idea what understanding is partially based on your recent posts as stated in my post, and you seem to interpret this in the way that it must be my poor understanding of your posts as a kyu player which is at issue here.

You criticise my "decision" to base my buying decisions on your public posts despite the fact that your public posts are the only available information about you.

In this context, your exhortation to me to read carefully seems a little bit misplaced.

BTW, I decided that you could read this post for free.

Among the several meta-discussions, let me just point out that my person (in contrast to contents of my texts) is off-topic.

RobertJasiek wrote:Among the several meta-discussions, let me just point out that my person (in contrast to contents of my texts) is off-topic.

You claimed that the lack of popularity of your books is mostly due to the unfair advantage of Attack and Defense and similar books due to seniority and wide distribution. I pointed out that there are also other reasons for my personal decision not to try your books.

Clearly, in my decision whether you might be a "good" (and here, "good" of course means "good for me") teacher and/or book writer, the perceived characteristics of your person as can be gleaned from your public posts and as pertains to characteristics that are also relevant to teaching and book-writing is certainly not off-topic. It is quite possible that you simply do not want to discuss this and this is fine, but when you state something that I perceive as wrong (e.g. your speculation why your books don't sell better than they do and maybe not as good as they should, and your assumption that my doubts that you have the same idea of "understanding" as me refers to me not understanding your lofty posts), I will certainly feel free to contrast your posts with my opinion.

Given that you severely misinterpreted several of my key words, but you call my observation of this "meta-discussion" instead of modifying your response, I understand that you are not especially interested in what I have to say. That is a pity, but I can live with it.

An example of such a characteristic that makes me doubtful of your abilities as a teacher and book writer is your repeated lack of actual engagement with opposing opinions and clarification of misunderstandings. This conversation is another failed chance for you to convince me otherwise.

The conclusion is that I would only buy your books if I had the chance to browse through them first and decide that they are good for me, but I would not spend money on them unseen.

Gotraskhalana…My impression is that Robert does not want to talk about his public presentation. If you want to know how he writes his books you can read samples on his website here: http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/ and you can read some of the many reviews L19 members have written here: http://lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2823