Ishi Press

Ishi Press was the first major publisher of English-language go books. Many of their titles are now out of print, although Kiseido have since republished a number of them. Ishi Press itself has only published one new book since 1994.

Ishi Press was founded in 1968 by Richard Bozulich and Stuart Dowsey. The Ishi Press was formally established as a Limited Company (kabushiki kaisha) in 1969. In 1971, Ishi Press was reorganized as a Japanese joint-stock company capitalized at 500,000 yen. James Davies joined Ishi Press at this time. In 1976, capitalization was increased to 2,000,000 yen.

The following is a complete list of Ishi Press go books. Those with codes beginning with H (except perhaps H7) were only distributed by, not published by, Ishi Press. Note that the codes G20, G38 and G39 were never used.

In January 2007, Ishi Press re-published three books by Sakata Eio Modern Joseki and Fuseki volumes 1 and 2 and The Middle Game of Go. These are available from Amazon.

--   The Rules and Elements of Go
G1   Modern Joseki and Fuseki, Volume 1
G2   Basic Techniques of Go *
G3   Modern Joseki and Fuseki, Volume 2
G4   GO: International Handbook and Dictionary
G5   The Middle Game of Go
G6   Strategic Concepts of Go *
G7   The 1971 Honinbo Tournament *
G8   Go for Beginners
G9   Go Para Principiantes
G10  In the Beginning *
G11  38 Basic Joseki *
G12  Tesuji *
G13  Life and Death *
G14  Attack and Defense *
G15  The Endgame *
G16  Handicap Go *
G17  Kage's Secret Chronicles of Handicap Go *
G18  Test Your Go Strength
G19  The Breakthrough to Shodan
G20  reserved for a book of proverbs, but not for a reprint of Go Proverbs Illustrated
G21  Dictionary of Basic Joseki, Volume 1 *
G22  Dictionary of Basic Joseki, Volume 2 *
G23  Dictionary of Basic Joseki, Volume 3 *
G24  Enclosure Josekis
G25  Appreciating Famous Games *
G26  The Direction of Play *
G27  Kato's Attack and Kill
G28  Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go *
G29  Reducing Territorial Frameworks *
G30  An Introduction to Go
G31  The Second Book of Go *
G32  The Power of the Star Point
G33  The Chinese Opening *
G34  All About Thickness (softcover)
G34H All About Thickness (hardcover)
G35  The Great Joseki Debates
G36  Opening Theory Made Easy *
G37  Beyond Forcing Moves
G38  unused
G39  unused
G40  The Go Player's Almanac *
G41  The Magic of Go
G42  All About Life and Death, Volume 1
G43  All About Life and Death, Volume 2
G44  The 3-3 Point Modern Opening Strategy *
G45  Positional Judgment *
G46  Cho Hunhyun - Life and Master Games

Ishi Press was a distributor, not the publisher of the following volumes:

H1   Invincible: The Games of Shusaku (hardcover)  *
H2   The Treasure Chest Enigma
H3   Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Volume 1 *
H4   Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Volume 2 *
H5   Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Volume 3 *
H6   Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Volume 4 *
H7   Mathematical Go Endgames

The books with an * have been reissued by Kiseido, with a K-prefix replacing the G-prefix for the G-prefix series. H1 is now K01, H3-H6 now K46-K49.

Kiseido lists Kage's Secret Chronicles of Handicap Go as K17, but it is in fact still selling books from the first print run of Ishi Press G17.

Ishi Press's simple cover designs were used for many of the Get Strong at Go Parodies.

Bob McGuigan For what it's worth, Invincible--The Games of Shusaku was the first publication of the Kiseido Publishing Company and was published in 1982 when Ishi Press still existed and functioned.

Ishi Press Published Books at Sensei's Library