(Part 2) Top products from r/baduk

I got a lot out of the following books:

Opening Theory Made Easy As its title suggests, this is limited to the opening but is still a great way to improve your game and easy for beginners to comprehend. I think I first read through this when I was around 17-18k and got a lot out of it. It's not about josekis but moreso principles to keep in mind in the beginning with a lot of great examples and explanations.

Second Book of Go This book was essentially tailor-made for people like you looking to proceed from elementary materials. The only problem is it seems to be out of print. I picked it up for about $20 2 years ago but I can't find it for under $100 on either Amazon or GoGameGuru.

Learn to Play Go Volume II This is part of a 5 book set that is pretty hit-or-miss for me. Volume I is good but probably covers the same materials as Go For Beginners. Volume II is a nice overview of the major extensions from stones (one point jump, knight's move, etc.) with a 20-25 assessment section at the end. Learn to Play Go Volume III isn't very good but I thought Volumes IV and V in the series were worth buying.

Go by Example This is the only book on my list written by a non-pro (well actually I don't think Richard Bozulich ever played professionally but the guy is responsible for the English translation of every go book ever and has written a fair share on his own so I'm guessing he's a decently strong player) and I think he's around an 8k or something, or at least was last time I checked. He plays online and has some specific insights for people playing online (such as not following the pace of your opponent) and reviews games he found on KGS. It has a bunch of examples and analysis and takes a different approach than the other older books I listed.

Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go You'll probably get more out of this once you're at around 16k or so but it's widely considered the best book on go. Plus Kageyama is a pretty entertaining (and very opinionated) writer. Covers all aspects of the game.

Do you mean this? It certainly does work! Although this isn't called the Kobayashi. I feel what makes the Kobayashi is that it requires your opponent to make a 2-space approach to prevent the pincer. In the "4-4 Kobayashi", a pincer is fine for both - one side gets influence, and the other the corner in sente.

It matters a lot which direction the 3-4 is facing! The direction it faces is essentially the 'bigger' side and approaching or enclosing is very valuable. However, this is not the reason for the Kobayashi and Chinese fusekis, whose goals are to make territory on the bottom (yes, even the Chinese's main goal is to make territory on the bottom by forcing your opponent to jump into a pincered position! - this is why most players play on the bottom as soon as the Chinese fuseki is in place).

For the Kobayashi and Chinese fusekis, if the 3-4 is facing the wrong direction, then the stones are too far apart. For example, look at the Chinese openings. Instead of playing on the middle line, it's one line closer to the 3-4 corner. This is to make the distance better for attacking any stone who enters between it. This is the common low-Chinese fuseki joseki. This is the same joseki, but if the stone was one further away from the 3-4. See how far White gets to extend? It looks like a normal corner joseki, but Black has already invested a lot of stones in the area - Black deserves a better result! If the Kobayashi was on the wrong 3-4, you'd have a similar result (but in this position, you'd play the last move one line closer to your 3-4 and end up with the mini-chinese fuseki).

Edit: If you're interested, The Direction of Play is a good book that really emphasizes the direction the stones are facing in the opening and has lots of good examples.

I love this book. It's a great play-by-play of the game with the recorded hopes and fears of the players during the actual game.
"They'll probably play here ... ooh, I didn't expect that."

It's well written with a good narrative that highlights the drama of the game, and includes little biographical and historical asides that bring the game out of the abstract and into a specific place and time, with a peek into the players' personalities and relationships.

It reminds me of John McPhee's excellent Levels of the Game (a similar group-biography organized around a play-by-play of a tennis match).

There is a collection called The Xuanxuan Qijing of 1347

The Gateway to All Marvels, by John Fairbairn is a nice rendition of these: https://www.amazon.com/Gateway-All-Marvels-John-Fairbairn-ebook/dp/B0085MJ6F0

I bought it off smart go books and really enjoyed it - still need to finish it though: https://gobooks.com/books.html - I love how it calls out the techniques used to solve a lot of the problems.

You might like to check out Alexander Morozevich, a Russian super-GM who has enthusiastically taken to go and written about it. https://chess24.com/en/read/news/morozevich-on-go-computers-and-cheating.

Also GM Tiger Hillarp plays go and sometimes writes about it on his blog. He and Morozevich played a combined chess and go match at the EGC in Russia.

Tangentially related, one of England's top women go players (1 kyu) is also a strong chess player (WIM) and co-authored a well-received book Chess for Life about keeping up your skills as you get older.

It's hard to cheese a victory at the end. What Redmond didn't explain about calculating endgame moves is that the efficiency of a move can be determined by the change in points divided by the number of moves from both players to settle the position. This was described by mathematicians (who weren't originally Go players themselves) in the book Chilling Point. After reading that book and doing some of the exercises, your endgame will get really good. The better you become, the earlier the endgame is for you.

I have this set. You'll be pleased with it.

I would suggest that you also buy this or equivalent with it.

Some batches of yunzi stones have surface lead - mine did when I tested them. This is not limited to YMI, and the production of yunzi requires some lead for strength. This test makes sure that the stones are not flaking and letting that lead out into your environment.

I'd also suggest washing your hands after playing with yunzi stones.

Edit:

Here's an AGA E-Journal Article from 2014 about lead in yunzi (specifically in YMI yunzi stones), and here is the post on Life in 19x19 that they cite as the source.

Sounds like you're making rapid progress! One really good book is Attack and Defense.

> Opening Theory Made Easy

LOL I said $10 not $100!

http://www.amazon.com/Opening-Theory-Made-Easy-Principles/dp/4871870367/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405216740&sr=8-1&keywords=opening+theory+made+easy

you can find them all over amazon :) just search “Hikaru no Go manga” and they should come up. The anime, I’m quite sure, is based on the manga. See the link below for Vol 1:
https://www.amazon.com/Hikaru-No-Go-Vol-1/dp/159116222X

Link to amazon: https://www.amazon.com/1000-Cases-Tsume-Go-Chinese-PengHe/dp/7810514296

I'd recommend it for 3k+. The problems are good. I haven't finished it (25% through). Would be good after Graded Go Problems for Beginners v4, if you're looking for progression.

There's a couple of reviews on sensei: https://senseis.xmp.net/?WeiqiLifeAndDeath1000Problems

Just because of the nature of chess and go outside Asia, there's a lot more terrible chess players out there. If your friends aren't serious, you could probably at least give a good fight to all of them after going through this book. (corollary: if they are serious, you will probably never beat them unless you're serious about chess too).

There is always an opportunity cost, though. If you REALLY want to get good at go, splitting your time into another game is always going to hurt you.

I think I might have solved my own problem.. I don't think this is the exact book I saw at my go club, but I think it is a copy or another translation of the book!

https://www.amazon.com/Gateway-All-Marvels-John-Fairbairn-ebook/dp/B0085MJ6F0/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

I liked this one on fuseki: http://www.amazon.com/Strong-Opening-Beginner-Elementary-Books/dp/4906574513

the rest of the series (life and death, invading, etc) is good too.

I don't know of any encyclopedias like that, but I'm not that knowledgeable. I do know that there are two separate works that independently function as a more in depth look at some specific players and games, namely Invincible, the games of Honihnbo Shusaku and Relentless, the games of Lee Seedol and Gu Li. Kiseido (linked for Invincible) has other English go books that contain analysis of games.

There are various books. You could try this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Relentless-Lee-Sedol-Gu-Li/dp/0981912184

and explore some of the related books that amazon sells. Also look at the sites of go publishers such as Slate and Shell, Kiseido, Yutopian, to see what they offer.

the ISBN is 1889554251, which appears to be this book, despite the different looking cover page. https://www.amazon.com/Fuseki-Small-Encyclopedia-English-Japanese/dp/1889554251/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492901298&sr=8-1&keywords=Fuseki+Small+Encyclopedia

One of the used book sellers seems to have 450k ratings, so I guess its legit?

His book is now on my list of things to read.

https://www.amazon.com/Celestial-Arsenal-Xuanyu-Lu/dp/1522709193/

(Although hmm, the black forces aren't really smaller.)

I was at meeting once with author in our local baduk club. Didn't read though. https://www.amazon.com/Go-Strategy-Ancient-Business-Competition-ebook/dp/B07SKLYCKS

Weird, it works for me. the book is Sabaki - The art of Settling Stones. Amazon Link