Korean Problem Academy/ Discussion

Velobici: Regarding this copyright issue, I have a difficulty understanding what Pierre's copyright covers. Does the copyright cover the problems or just the solutions? The problems were not composed by Pierre. Pierre has added solutions and, perhaps, created the SGF files. It would seem that Pierre's copyright covers the solutions only. By way of analogy, if a person publishes a commentary on a work and copyrights it, the copyright covers the commentary only. The status of the preexisting work is unchanged.

adammarquis: Does anybody think the ranks a bit overestimated? I am around 7-8 kyu and the 3rd set of problems are rather quickly and easily solved.

jfc: I never give much credit to problem rankings. The relative problem difficulties are of some use but difficulty is very subjective.

It it not clear who assigned these rankings. Did the original Korean Publications?

Lastly, the original books simply list the starting positions without solutions. Not providing solutions makes it feel more like a real game position. In a game every problem is a status problem and it is important to know not only whether a group is alive or dead but things like how many ko threats does black have here and what aji is left behind by the dead group (e.g. sente peeps). I agree that as problems the positions are easy for the rank specified. As life and death positions to study I think they are very interesting.

nachtrabe: I just heard Janice Kim on a KGS Plus lecture say that the "right level of problems" for L&D practice is the kind of problem you can solve "instantly." Perhaps these problems should not be viewed as "problems that someone at that level can do" so much as "problems that someone at that level should practice"?

WilliamNewman: Does anyone know the Korean title of this publication? I was thinking of asking a Korean friend to try to find at least one of the original volumes (in hopes of reading it as I can read Maeda's problems without speaking Japanese). I expect it would be easier to find if we had the Korean title, not just an English paraphrase of the title. (Insert grumpiness here about someone who not only seems to ignore original copyright while asserting his own unqualified copyright -- copyright protection for me but not for thee -- but also doesn't follow the usual academic or net-public-domain-software courtesies of clearly citing the original. Still, I must admit that admitting that there was an original is an important step up from some of the behavior that I've seen.)

TimK: Here is the info from Pierre. I don't know why each one has two ISBNs. Does anyone know where I can buy these?

Volume 1:

Code 1 : 9 788988 847091
Code 2 : 04690
ISBN : 89-88847-09-1
ISBN : 89-88847-08-3

Volume 2:

Code 1 : 9 788988 847107
Code 2 : 04690
ISBN : 89-88847-10-5
ISBN : 89-88847-08-3

Volume 3:

Code 1 : 9 788988 847114
Code 2 : 04690
ISBN : 89-88847-11-3
ISBN : 89-88847-08-3

Volume 4

Code 1 : 9 788988 847121
Code 2 : 04690
ISBN : 89-88847-12-1
ISBN : 89-88847-08-3

Velirun: Hey all - I import Korean baduk books for American players, and I've now had well over a dozen requests for these books. I'd love to find some copies for the masses, but even with these ISBNs I can't seem to find them. If anyone has any more information about these, anything at all, could you please post it here?

I've found the books in Korea, but it seems that they can be only pre-ordered, not in usual books stores.

Velobici: Perhaps we can get together a number of folks interested in buying this set of books and save one the shipping costs. Shipping from the Far East is expensive. (Single volume at $15, surface shipping is $14, airmail is $18.50. 10 volumes: $150 for the books, surface shipping is $22.00 and airmail is $61.00.) Within the United States shipping is cheap. The idea is to split the oceanic costs and pay the local costs. Is anyone else interested in owning a set?

SirLyric: Sounds like fun, if the price is reasonable.

kritz sounds good - my game is horrible lately - anything would help.

Ectospheno: I own the books. The shipping costs are annoying but the books are nice. I should note though that the Korean Problem Academy problems on gobase do not match the problems in the books. They are close in many instances but different.

TimK: That's odd - the books I got match the gobase problems almost exactly. The only difference I saw was that some of the problems in the fourth set are in a different order.

Ectospheno: "They are close in many instances" is pretty much the same thing as "match ... almost exactly" so I'm not sure what you find "odd". Yes, books one and two are almost spot on. Book 3 and especially book 4 have major differences to the point where several of the problems in section 4 on gobase do not appear at all in the actual book 4.