Usagi's Books

Hello. I am Usagi, currently ranked 3 dan in Taiwan. I'm writing a series of Go books to promote the game of Go. They are available for free in eBook form.

The first book

River Mountain Go Series 1 Download
Formerly known as the 30-20k Study Book. This book has been edited and expanded for a re-release with book #2. It is intended for players who are just starting their Go journey.

The second book

River Mountain Go Series 2 Download
This book will be for people between 20k and 8k, although the content is geared more towards the latter half of this stage.

The third book

River Mountain Go Series 3. This book will be for single digit kyus who wish to travel to the land of Sho'dan. It's not done yet.

About the books:

• The first two books have been released.
• They are available for free in eBook form, to promote the spread of Go and teach Go.
• If you notice that the books could be better, let me know how, and I will try to make it better.

Errata (from the old version):

• Section 6.1, p59, white's 24 is captured, should be removed from the next figures (Figure 7, Figure 8, Diagram 1)
• Chapter 8, p68, black 3 and 5 should be swapped for the basic joseki sequence, the text in the paragraph agrees, it's just a diagram "typo"
• Chapter 9, p72, Problems 2 and 4 are identical...?
• Chapter 10, p78, second paragraph, "Black must now prevent white 'b'" not "...prevent white 'a'".
• Chapter 11, p90, "This would mean white has more than 30 points in the upper left" not "...in the upper right"
• chapter 11, p95, two captured black stones are still in Fig. 17
• Chapter 11, p96, 109 is still numbered "9", but this diagram should only be numbered from 11 to 28.

EwoutStam: The book is not at a very "printable" size (A4/letter size). The book also has quite a few pages (100+).

I figured out how to make my printer driver squeeze four pages on one sheet of paper. Since the pages were intended to be small, the letters are not too small to read, and the resulting pile of paper isn't too big. I advise anyone who wants to print this out to try messing with their printer driver's properties to save on paper.

pwaldron: The discussion of the AGA komi in the rules section of the book is incorrect, although not terribly. Komi must be an odd number (5.5 or 7.5) to keep the scores derived from area and territory counting methods the same. The 6.5 point komi used in Japan can cause problems under the AGA rules.

UncleJam: Hi, I read the first book and it was very helpful. While I knew of all the concepts contained in it, the book helped solidify them for me. I have started with the second book. In the second book, chapter one, the diagrams are really confusing to me. Sometimes it seems the text references stones that don't exist on the diagram, and also sometimes there seems to be numbered moves that aren't suppose to be there. Help?

Yes, there are definitely errors which make those diagrams incredibly confusing.

Briannowe: hi i like book number two i think it kinda help me i knew everything in it exept the tsumego that all thanks for making it free for all of us that are still learning in book number three you should talk about joseki and u should also create a go problem book since u so good at it XD c ya

Carney: I think UncleJam's observations on the diagrams are correct. For example, on page 11, first diagram, White's stone at S1 shouldn't be there, right? It gives White an extra move. And then from figure 3 on, the numbering and corresponding figures become very confusing.

David: In the ebooks you reference coordinates without them being marked on the diagrams. It is hard to find D17 on a diagram without coordinates marked, could you perhaps add them or mark moves in another way?