Get Strong At Life And Death

    Keywords: Books & Publications

Volume 8 in the "Get Strong at... Series" by Richard Bozulich published by Kiseido.

The book is divided into three sections entitled: The Basics of Life and Death, Life and Death Positions Arising from Joseki, and Miscellaneous Problems -- 101 Problems. Many of the problem answer diagrams contain both the correct answer and one or more incorrect choices with their refutation.

The Basics of Life and Death comprises 9 themes. Each section contains some explanatory material and problems involving the material. The 9 sections are: Eye Spaces (live and dead shapes), Bent Four in the Corner, Reducing Your Opponent's Eye Space, Expanding Your Own Eye Space, Creating False Eyes, Exploiting a Shortage of Liberties, Ten-Thousand Year Ko, The Comb Formation, and The Carpenter's Square. In total, this section contains 88 problems, some of which are dan level.

Life and Death Positions Arising from Joseki consists of 76 problems. One is called upon to exercise the techniques of the first section without hints or prompting as to which technique might prove useful. A varying number of problems, from 4 to 12, are presented at one time followed immediately by the answer diagrams, and a diagram of the joseki that gives rise to the problem, on the overleaf (the following even numbered or left hand page). The uneven number of problems presented at once appears to be due to page layout and the number of answer diagrams. Rather than present the same number of problems in each set, the number of problems presented at one time is the number that will complete an odd numbered page (a right hand side page).

The last section: Miscellaneous Problems -- 101 Problems consists of 101 problems.

David Carlton has a [ext] review of this book.


ilan: This is a good book, because it gives a wide range of consistent problems, in the sense that it will help you learn the basic corner patterns. Other problem books seem more random in their choices. In other words, this is more like a textbook presented as a problem book.

However, I'm having a hard time with this book because it seems that in 50% of the cases, the solutions I find are not given as answers. This is a little frustrating, because I believe that problem books should be rigourous in their solutions. Now I find that there is a problem which doesn't seem to have the correct answer at all, and this is somewhat frustrating, because it looks like I spent a lot of effort trying to find a solution which didn't exist. Normally, I find books with errors more interesting, because one can be a little more aggressive in finding flaws, but here, maybe I'm not strong enough yet to feel this way. It seems that incorrect statements tend more to encourange me to distrust my reading, and go over the same lines over and over.

Anyway, the problem in question is number 76 on page 57, see Get Strong at Life and Death/Errata.


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