Recommended Intermediate Books

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Jan: I would like to get the opinion of some other deshis on what book to read next. So far, I've read:

I'm still working on:

But I find the latter two quite tedious. So: what's a good book to read next, to make reading Go books interesting again? Someone suggested Invincible to me, is that a good idea? I don't necessarily want to become 2 stones stronger overnight, I just want something to tickle my imagination, give me new stuff to think about[1]. Those two stones are a plus, though :-)


[1]: Life and Death and 38 Basic Joseki are just more of the same after a few chapters...

I strongly disagree about Life and Death. Mastering this material is vital for any player who wants to get to about 4k or better. It's an excellent book, has been thoroughly checked and has very, very few mistakes (I know of only one: Errata).

Agree that 38 Basic Joseki is mostly a waste of time, though. An SDK player just needs to know the few josekis he/she plays, plus enough of some others to stay out of major trouble.


adamzero: I recommend either The Direction of Play or The Endgame. The most interesting part of the endgame book is playing out the three games with commentary. Learning how a professional sees the endgame was mindblowing for me, and even before reading the endgame tesuji and counting chapters I think I gained a stone. The Direction of Play can sometimes be tedious, but it can open up the game of go on the large scale for you. Soon after reading that book my friends and I were sitting around analyzing an opening and someone said, "Wow, I can't believe how small this board is." And it was true. The better your feel for direction of play, the more you'll be able to feel tiny differences in the position of stones, and where the temperature is highest, strategically.


Dieter: A book that really changed my attitude towards the game, even after 5 years of playing and having reads tens of books, was Killer of Go by Sakata Eio. Very enjoyable too: a couple of essays made it worth rereading a couple of times.

Stefan: May I also offer Tesuji and anti-suji of Go by the same author? Same refreshing effect from looking at a couple of familiar situations in a whole different light. (Probably best not to read these two too quickly in succession)


Jan: Hi everyone, thanks for your advice! I've just bought the The Endgame book, since in practically every game I play I spend half the time looking for one-point gote moves - I don't know how to count properly and what kind of moves to look for, so I stand to learn something there.

I took a look at Direction of Play as well, it seemed interesting; and I expect that'll be next once I start playing more even games at the club. My very quick(<30 sec) impression of Killer of Go was that it contained professional games and was too advanced for me right now, and sadly the Go Club Utrecht library didn't have Tesuji and anti-suji of Go but I still can't read all the problems in Tesuji so I guess that'll have to wait as well. Thanks again!

Jan: Well, two days ago I lost my first even game (with Black and no komi no less). I also bought The Direction of Play which I find very interesting so far! I think I'm beginning to understand what joseki is about - I'm beginning to see why anyone would want to play on the 5-3 or 5-4 points first and why you choose one way of playing above the other. It also contains a lot of high-level games, so my opinion against Killer of Go may have been unfairly biased.

Last week, what I learned from The Endgame helped me win a game against a stronger player :-) Full marks to adamzero!

juhtolv : If reading a book called "Life and Death" feels too tedious, maybe you should read both volumes of All About Life and Death instead. And why did you skip parts 1 and 2 of Graded Go Problems for Beginners? [ext] Here is what [ext] gobooks.info has to say about All About Life and Death:

"I had tried around five times to make it through the Davies [ext] Life and Death book; the way that I finally learned anything about life and death was to work all the way through [ext] Graded Go Problems 2 and 3, and read (partially) through this one."

Unfortunately All About Life and Death was published by Ishi Press and Kiseido has not yet resurrected them. So it may be difficult to find those two books. HTH


Martin?: Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go is a waste of time reading if you want to improve your game. Much better to tackle the internet site 321go.org;


Recommended Intermediate Books last edited by 2001:0861:3006:8bf0 on November 23, 2020 - 08:21
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