Would "Fujisawa Shuko's Dictionary of basic Tesuji " volumes be a good investment at the DDK level ? I already own the elementary go series, and am looking for a good investment of ~$50-75.

My other inclination was for the GoGoD CD, but my new Mac laptop (In Apple's infinite wisdom) comes with no CD drive If there is no DRM, this is still an option.

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Tempus Omnia Vincit

The elementary go series can be quite difficult... maybe OK for around 5k.
Maybe you can list your entire Go library collection,
then people can suggest what's OK for you for the money.

Good idea. I currently have these in my (Go) library -

* Elementary Go Series Vols.I-VI
* Learn to Play Go Vols. I-V
* Fundamental Principles of Go (Yilun Yang)
* Go Proverbs Illustrated (Segoe Kensaku)
* Appreciating Famous Games (Shuzo Ohira)
* Invincible

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Tempus Omnia Vincit

There's no DRM, so you can copy it to your Mac via a usb cd drive, a networked computer's cd drive, etc.

I'd get some problem books (tesuji or life and death). You have lots of textbooks, not as much pure problem books - I have both, and pure problem books have been more useful to me. Dictionary of basic tesuji might not be the best buy for you in my opinion - a) it's not a problem book b) when I first browsed it, it went often well above my reading abilities, and I was SDK already, now as 1k I'm getting something out of it. YMMV, of course.

Perhaps Zeijst & Bozulich Mastering the basics -series, volumes 2-4? Vol 1. is about openings problems, decent, but not as good as those three IMHO, I have not enough experience about later vols (4-8) in the series to judge. I don't have personal experience, but Graded go problems for beginners by Kato (Ignore the indicated levels on book covers) might work too?

I'm personally going through Segoe&Seigen Tesuji Dictionary - it is more of a problem book than Fujisawa dictionary - but I think it would be too hard for a DDK.

Of course you can just do problems on computer, but it's not as easy to impulsively click around using a book

Kiseido's Graded Go Problems for Beginners volumes 1-3 by Kano Yoshinori 9p (and vol. 4, depending on your budget).Maybe Tim had a typo and meant Kano instead?

Regarding the dictionary of basic Tesuji, you don't have to buy all four volumes at once, as each book certainly stands on it's own. I bought volume 2: Tesuji for Defending about two years ago, and it feels like that book alone has enough material for a lifetime of studying. I made it through about 20 pages before it started gathering dust, which I figure is better than all four volumes gathering dust. As Bill likes to say - your mileage may vary.

p.s. I second the problem book suggestion: both Get Strong at Tesuji and 1001 Life-and-Death Problems would be an excellent place to start.

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"When you are learning, it is not so important whether you are right or wrong." - Bill Spight

Indeed. I'm quite good at making typos - writing too fast on a slightly crappy keyboard

I would also advice against buying Shuko's Tesuji Dictionary right now. They are - without doubt - excellent books (I have all four) but they need a lot of work and in my opinion considerate skill (at least 5-2k KGS).
You have Tesuji from the Elementary Go Series, Shuko's books are a more advanced version of this book. Much deeper because they show more Tesujis and more complex ones but they come with a lot less text than in Tesuji by Davies, so you have to figure out more things yourself.

I'm with EdLee and daal (among others) and can recommend the Graded Go Problems For Beginners series (1-4), Get Strong at Tesuji and 1001 Life-and-Death Problems. I would start with the Graded Go Problems vol. 1-3, then Get Strong at Tesuji, 1001 Life-and-Death Problems and finally Graded Go Problems vol. 4. Repeat until you can solve the majority of these problems in under ten seconds =D

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Thanks guys ! The problems books are perfect.

I actually forgot to mention that I have the "Graded Go Problems" Vols. I-II in SmartGo Book format. I just finished Vol. I, but I'm currently taking way more than 10 secs. on some of the problems and got some of them wrong (Apart from mediocre reading ability, I suspect, this is also a function of doing them during commute ). The other two books I do not own, so may buy those.

I particularly like that "Get Strong at Tesuji" has solutions on the reverse page. I haven't yet read any theory books on Tesuji, so is it correct to assume that I should atleast know Tesuji from the elementary series before even attempting the problems there ?

Any opinions on "Go Problems for Kyu Players" by William Cobb ? I tried to have a look at the sample pages at Slate&Shell, but there is some weird formatting issue and am not able to make out anything. They look kind of small, but are also cheap (~$4.50).

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Tempus Omnia Vincit

Great! Now turn the book upside-down and do them again. Without looking at the answers. The book claims to be 30-25 kyu, but is severely misranked - don't worry about it. I found it (vol. 1) quite easy when I was 8 kyu, but at the same time, it alone probably pushed me up to 6 kyu.

I'd say, look at the answer after you spent some time thinking about the problem and came up with a possible sequence. Knowing vital points and shapes is more important than brute-forcing. Brute-forcing takes a long time, you most likely will not solve as many problems as you could when looking at the answers (in one session) and my experience is that shapes and vital points become more familiar the more problems you solved.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

You're talking about volume I?

I'd say never look at the answer, and don't ever settle for a "possible" sequence. Read until you are certain, and then you won't need an answer. But this discussion has been done to death. I think it's important for everyone who does tsumego to be aware that both factions exist, though, and I think anyone who looks at the answers and finds they've got a significant number wrong is doing something wrong - either by doing tsumego that are too hard or by not spending enough time on them. Anyway, I don't really want to have this discussion in someone else's thread.


Yes.

Huh. I tend to be fairly selective about recommending the first volume of that series to DDK players because my recollection is that the difficulty level of the problems is about at "pull the stone out of atari". Am I thinking of a different book? How hard to the problems get?

It's the same book, the problems get a bit harder. I got it around 16/17k and solved it on sight on my first run through to give you an idea of difficulty (I remember being quite annoyed by the problems' difficulty). Volume II is a substantial step up in the latter half.

A bit harder... spot-the-killing-move-in-a-nakade-shape category. The most advanced concept of the book is perhaps the introduction of false eyes.
I feel puzzled by billywoods' comment too.
Although I suppose it does train the eye to spot the very basic things very quickly, I wonder how it can help a sdk gain a stone.

A lot of the early ones are incredibly simple life-and-death (and one or two are even "is this move legal?"). Later on it gets a little harder. Here's one:



I think this problem's easy, but I don't think it's so easy that it's completely beneath strong DDK players (or weak SDK players with particularly weak reading) to practise problems like this over and over. There are many tens of problems involving snapbacks, throw-ins, and so on. There are a few problems involving unsettled groups with several potential eyes up for grabs, but only one way to make life / kill. There are plenty of problems involving groups that I would have just taken one glance at and written off as already alive that were actually killable. There are a few (13*13) whole-board problems. I went through this book twice and gained a stone or two in strength.

(I'm equally puzzled by the criticism my comment is receiving. Perhaps I'm stupid for not having been able to spot snapbacks very well until I was 8 kyu - or indeed clever for getting to 8 kyu with pathetic reading skills. I don't much mind either way. But I'm probably not the only one.)

It's not criticism (on my part at least). It's just, well, I went through vol 1 twice a long time ago when I was 20-18k. I dismissed it quite quickly to go on to vol 2, and although I went through vol 2 several times since then I never even considered going back to vol 1. Probably because it starts with those capture the atari problems, and also because vol 2 does a very good job in itself to explore snapbacks/throw-ins/false eyes, etc. Most people I think do the same and do not look at this book twice.
So it's higly surprising to read about a sdk improving on it.
You have convinced me to look at it once more.

Maybe that's the main point? As a SDK, you already have an instinct for what can/cannot live and some of those problems challenge that instinct, because groups are nearly settled but can still be killed in one move. While personnally, I never think instinctively a group is alive when it doesn't already have two eyes, so I do not wonder about such things, I wonder about where to put down my stones to make two eyes happen. And in this respect the problems are easy to read, once you are familiar with the tactics they introduce. Once I understood what a snapback was, I felt I was done with problems like the one above.
But that may well be wrong.

I can't find that problem in my copy (what number is it?) and the whole board problems are 19x19, did some problems change across editions? (I've the Smart Go edition)