Nihon Ki-in brown cover series

(こだわり講座) Five small book series published by the Nihon Kiin in 2003 and 2004. All became available in Kindle format in 2022. 318 pages each.

• Book 1 アマの負ける手負けない手 黒番編 (Amateur's losing moves and not losing moves: Black), by Hiramoto Yasei, ASIN: B0B7R4N45C
• Book 2 捨て石の極意 (Secrets of sacrifice), ASIN: B0B8GDQJW2
• Book 3 アマの負ける手負けない手 白番編 (sequel to Book 1, for White), ASIN: B0B9WH1TLL
• Book 4 ツギ方で棋力がわかる (Connecting reveals your strength), ASIN: B0BBQKH3B1
• Book 5 基本死活虎の巻 (Basic life and death guidebook), ASIN: B0BCHT8XMR

(On Book 1):

60 questions that lead you through the turning points of 3 games. The games appear to be of professional standard^[1], though I couldn't find them in SmartGo. At each stage you are generally given 4 choices, lettered ABCD. Then on the following pages the consequences of each choice are shown with a mark from 1 to 10 for how good a result it is. He doesn't just follow the main line, but takes some of the alternatives forward in the next problem sometimes. The games are treated in parallel, i.e. dealing with the fuseki/joseki stuff for all first, then moving on. This book thus leads you through the early fuseki/joseki choices through to the late life & death & ko fights at the end. Includes the 3 game records at the end.

Usable without being able to read Japanese, though there is Japanese text that you are going to miss out on. Familiarity with basic Japanese for reading go books is enough, in my opinion --PeterHB.

anonymous-- I don't think it's correct to say that basic Japanese is enough for this book. You could do more harm than good if you are not able to read the explanations.

[1] Adrian Ghioc: I don't have the series but the title may suggest, at least to me, that the games may not be of "professional standard". The title is "Ama no makeru te (amateur losing moves) * makenai te (moves that don't lose) * kuroban (black to play)"