Opening Theory Made Easy
Opening Theory Made Easy -- Twenty Strategic Principles to Improve Your Opening Game is an opening theory book for beginners by Otake Hideo, 9-dan professional.
The book tries to keep things simple. It doesn't contain long, complicated sequences with many variations. Instead, the author manages to explain deep things simply.
From the Preface:
... In this book I have selected what I consider to be 20 key points of the fuseki and explained them with concrete examples. This book is made up of three chapters (Fuseki Fundamentals, Good Shape, Strategy), but the division is not very significant. I recommend that the reader treat my 20 principles as proverbs and familiarize himself with them until they become second nature ... Knowledge of these principles will help you develop a deeper understanding of the fuseki and master its basic strategy. ...
Table of Contents
- Chapter One - Fuseki Fundamentals
- Corner enclosures aim at side extensions
- Be flexible in deploying from the star-point
- Find the right pincer
- Have a counterplan to deal with invasions
- The 5-4 stone aims at outside influence
- The 4th line is the line of development, the *3rd line is the line of completion
- Build box-like moyos
- Chapter Two - Good Shape
- Family feuds waste resources
- Don't permit a hane at the head of your stones
- You can never catch up if you push from behind
- The empty triangle is bad shape
- The ponnuki is worth 30 points
- Don't atari automatically
- Chapter Three - Strategy
- Attack the opponent by stealing his base
- Don't attach against weak stones
- Try to kill two birds with one stone
- Use thickness to attack
- Keep away from solid positions
- Reduce a large moyo lightly
- Don't cling to stones that have served their purpose
Sample Material
to be added
Reviews
- Go book reviews - Go book reviews including Opening Theory Made Easy
Notes
Logan?: Classic book! Best opening book for beginners.
LordOfPi: I'd recommend it for 15k - 5k players.
Hdouble: I think that this book is of value to players in the 20-25k range as well; that's where I'm at and I've found this book useful and accessible. Many of the principles are broad enough that they can be safely and usefully applied by new players (making good shape, avoiding the empty triangle, understanding the difference between 3rd line and 4th line play, etc.)
Phlegmatic: I'm 12k and after only a couple of hours with this book I've gained a tremendous amount from it. I would enthusiastically recommend it to anyone around my rank.
Hyppy: This book is currently available from Kiseido as K36. I just bought it myself.
rsl12: I got this book a couple weeks ago. Having only gone through about 1/3 of the book, my rank went from 20k to 18k! I'm no longer so confused about what to do in the openings. The principles are few in number and all very easy to understand intuitively. It gives you the telescope you need to see the constellations formed by the stones. Before reading the book, I just sort of randomly plopped stones anywhere that looked open. Now my brain tingles during the opening game. That's probably a good sign.
Naustin--I'm just throwing my two cents in even though I agree with everyone else. I liked this book immensely. I thought it was very practical and easy to read. I feel that it has genuinely helped me to understand the opening better.
I got the Ishi Press edition through the library and the only criticism I have to offer is that this edition has a number of typos particularly confusing black and white. The diagrams are so simple and clear though that it usually isn't a very big problem to figure out what it should say.
uxs: I absolutely love this book. It has a lot of diagrams that only contain rather short move sequences. A lot of other theory books have very long sequences, making them very hard to read (for me), especially without a board nearby to play out the sequences. It also has clear explanations for almost everything. This is probably my favorite book.
Gresil: I recently got a copy, in the nick of time. One reading was enough to clear a thoroughly disheartening bottleneck in my playing and I expect to get very close to SDK level in the near future. It's a very clear and simple overview of basic fuseki principles many of which were previously badly articulated in my head. Such bloody obvious moves I'd never thought of on my own! If you're in the 15-20k range and your fuseki feels shaky, this'll set you straight.
erikpan: I found a copy of this online, I have to say it's improved my play incredibly. Once I reached about 24k and started playing people much better than me, I found my weakest point was that I became really confused as to how to actually begin the game; but this book really set me straight. You can tell it's easy to understand by the way all the points are really obvious once you see them, with lots of good examples and deconstructions of play to illustrate the principles. I'd recommend this book to anyone, especially a beginner trying to get over the first hurdles of how to approach a large board - after two readings it's taken me up to 18k in the space of just a couple of months and I expect to continue improving :)