The Game of Go - The National Game of Japan

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Introductory book by Arthur Smith, published in 1956 by Charles E. Tuttle Company, Rutland Vermont and Tokyo Japan.It was originally published in 1908 by Moffat,Yard and company New York.It continued to be republished until at least 1983.

The Arthur Smith book is almost 100 years old, and only of interest to collectors and historians.

See [ext] David Carlton's review.

Naustin--I disagree with this some. The book is interesting and actually contains a reasonable amount of information especially at the beginner and high kyu level. The book contains a short history, rules, basics of play, something like 7 example games, joseki examples for 5 different aproach moves to komoku as well as takamoku and mokuhadzushi. Hoshi joseki are also considered as handicap joseki. The book also contains a collection of basic endgame maneuvers, and a large collection of problems.

There are several drawbacks to the book though. It is dated and so some information is alittle bit dated. As the game was new to the west at that point there is little in the way of precedent and the author and the Korschelt work he refers to are not strong players nor do they have deep understanding of the game nor does he have much precedent for expressing the ideas in English. My edition also had something like a 30 page section bound out of order.

On the whole though it is somewhat dated it is an unusual work in that it brings alot of material together in one place and the theoretical prejudices of the author are fairly minimal. I am 12k KGS and have been reworking through my copy of it and feel I am still gaining/learning from it.


This is a copy of the living page "The Game of Go - The National Game of Japan" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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