The Go Consultants
{{book |title=The Go Consultants |origname= |series= |part= |author=John Fairbairn
A new version of Go Consultants was published in August 2024. It is twice as big as the Slate & Shell version, since it now incorporates all the historical material (and more) that was in the original GoGoD Encylcopaedia version. It is available on demand on Amazon.
In 1934, at the height of the New Fuseki craze, the Hochi Shinbun newspaper devised a match which pitted the two leading proponents of New Fuseki, Kitani Minoru and Go Seigen, against two traditionalists - their teachers, Suzuki Tamejiro and Segoe Kensaku. But this was no ordinary game. It was an attempt to get the "perfect game" and so the two sides were allowed to confer. Not only that, they could make trial moves on a separate board, and they were given plenty of time to discuss their moves - sixteen hours each spread over five full playing days.
The newspaper's reporter recorded the consultations and daily instalments appeared in the newspaper. A little later, these were compiled into a book. That was an entire book on just one game!
Just in case that was considered heavy going, the newspaper readers were also given frequent dollops of historical anecdotes. These did not always shed light directly on the consultation game itself, but they were mostly not well-known stories and so they form a delightful sideshow. More than that, perhaps, they changed the pace of the commentary, and usefully both allowed and encouraged readers to absorb the different nuances of each player's comments, which not only revealed much about their style of thinking but also about their individual characters. This will be especially useful to readers of previous books by John Fairbairn, because these players have featured there frequently and in some depth.
Because of the generous space allotted to the commentary, readers could see how the top four active players of the time evaluated positions, how they chose their moves, how they thought about the endgame, how they managed their time - even how they still managed to make mistakes despite the generous time allowance and the chance to consult a partner! In particular, it seems that the biggest mistakes often arose because they were unable to predict the opponents' moves. But then we also see how they manage to recover.
The present book is based on the original Hochi Shinbun series, but contains many extras for the western audience. A attempt has been made to recreate the sensation that the original Japanese readers might have had, and so, as recommended by modern learning theory, follows the "effortful practice" format used in previous books by John Fairbairn. However, some of the effort is eased by the use of colour and extensive diagrams. Indexes are also included.
One intriguing aspect of this game is that the spellbinding attraction and utter bewilderment some people feel for go as played by today's AI bots matches rather well the almost orgasmic fascination the Japanese of the 1930s felt for New Fuseki. They too wanted to know how New Fuseki altered go theory. The Hochi Shinbun games (there were two later ones as well) at least showed them how top pros approached the problem of trying to make sense of new go theory. The lessons are still valid in the present AI age.
This unique book appeared originally in the GoGoD Encyclopaedia before appearing in a much truncated paper version published by Slate & Shell in 2007. The present 2024 version restores all the truncated parts and adds new material (in particular, an AI post-mortem is added to supplement the post-mortems by the four players), so that it now has twice as many pages in the same-size format. The format, with many diagrams, the chatty text and the anecdotal material make this an ideal book for reading in bed. But, at a more serious level, it should be noted that this book in combination with the similar book Great Unexpectations gives a rare yet highly detailed - and surprising - insight into how professional players think. This insight carries over into how we have to view the human approach to what AI can teach go players.
2024 was chosen for the re-issue because it is a significant date for go. It marks the 100th anniversary of the Nihon Ki-in.
There is an e-book version for the iPad. but this is the old Slate & Shell edition only (now renamed the "Legacy edition".
Reviews
ZenGarden I have just bought this book and am simply glued to it. How instructive and how inspiring to find a book which presents a professional game analysed move by move by the highest level professionals! John Fairbairn and T. Mark Hall have done the Go playing world a wonderful service in producing this marvellous book. One would wish for these two authors to produce many other accounts of consultation games. With John Faibairn's equally impressive Kamakura and more surveys of high level professional matches to come from Slate & Shell, this promises a series of feasts for the Western Go playing community!