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 Post subject: Review "Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics"
Post #1 Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 10:10 am 
Gosei
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The author received a free copy of the book in exchange for this review.


Robert Jasiek's book "Life and Death Problems 1 -Basics" offers an extensive outlook into basic life-and-death techniques, while also defining some new terms. It is printed on quality paper and the binding is also very good and enduring, as usual for Jasiek's books.

The book differentiates the techniques into seven larger groups, e.g. 'Fundamentals', 'Fighting about an Eyespace' and 'Double Purpose' (TOC: http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/LifeAndDeat ... _1_TOC.pdf). Each group is divided into up to 15 sub-chapters, often following the pattern of explaining a basic technique first, then showing moves threatening the technique and finally showing moves preventing the technique.
Each sub-chapter has up to three problems to test the reader's understanding of the afore mentioned technique. In total, Jasiek states that the book contains 171 problems.

Here we come to the biggest strength of the book: The problems are really good!
They are fresh and unused and feel like problems you could encounter in your everyday play. Especially Problem 2 in chapter 2.1 is a real treat.
If you found yourself repeatedly referring to Davies' chapter on how to read (in his “Tesuji”) then you will find an equally good problem here, which will show you how to figure out what the best local play will be in a life-and-death problem, where many captures or aims in general collide.
The extensive use of answer diagrams also leads to a good understanding of the problems and covers a lot of variations, so that beginners can follow the ins and outs of the problem easily.

But while both the explanations and the answer diagrams are very beginner-friendly, the problems themselves are not. Therefore Jasiek's stated range from 20k to 5k seems too liberal.
I would assume that any player below 10k will have a hard time solving a lot of the problems. The other way round: A stronger player will have a lot of fun with the problems but most of the text and many answer diagrams will be redundant for this player, since – on his level – he already knows about all the techniques.

From this follows a discrepancy, which permeates the book.

“Life and Death Problems 1 – Basics” deals primarily with certain techniques, mostly with very simple beginner-level techniques. And it explains them very well.
In fact it explains them so well and extensive that if you look at the page-problem-ratio (we only consider the pages 6 – 192, excluding TOC and the index), 187 pages to 171 problems, we see that the focus is not on problems per se but on explaining, on text.

In itself, that's okay. It should be a beginners book, it should cover techniques to such detail that beginners can understand them. But why are the problems so hard then?
And equally important, why does the book's name contain “Problems” when the actual focus is explaining techniques? This might sound a little pedantic but if I would buy this book, in hopes of a problem book, I would be disappointed.
I don't know what Jasiek plans with this series but I would prefer a name similar to “Life and Death 1 – Beginner Techniques”. And easier problems of course, that match the level of the techniques.

Some additional words concerning the explanations: While generally short, precise, useful and understandable, they sometimes go overboard with the range of purpose for different techniques.
When I read the additional purpose of a connection in form of a list ranging from a) to o), where o) is “miscellaneous”, then I wonder about the usefulness of such information. It's good to be thorough but the aim should be usefulness for the target audience and I can't imagine a beginner gaining more insight because of such a list.

If your are familiar with Jasiek's work, his pursuit for precision in his writing will be nothing new. For everyone else: Although always understandable, some explanations can read very academic and thus harder to understand for the unfamiliar mind. Especially if you are used to the writings of James Davies and the likes.
On the plus side, you will rarely find a book, that gives about nine pages to the explanation of “Nakade” and also contains the definition of a new term: “Lake”.
Since Jasiek exemplarily put up sample pages for all of his books, you can easily check bits of their content and his writing style (for this book: http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/LifeAndDeat ... Sample.pdf).

To put it into a nutshell: “Life and Death Problems 1 – Basics” is a great and much needed idea of a book, which puts life in many often named but rarely explained techniques.
Sadly the result is torn between the beginner-level theme and the intermediate-level problems. Nevertheless, both parts are great! But together they don't really form a harmonious union.
I would still say that beginning players can benefit a lot from this book, not so much from the problems themselves, but due to the extensive explanations of the techniques and the use of numerous answer diagrams.
Therefore I can recommend “Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics” as a textbook, maybe as a useful addition to a more conventional problem book.


- Christopher Junkers, EGF 2-kyu

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 Post subject: Re: Review "Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics"
Post #2 Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 4:48 pm 
Oza
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Thanks for this review!

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 Post subject: Re: Review "Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics"
Post #3 Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 1:53 am 
Judan

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SoDesuNe wrote:
why are the problems so hard then?


The difficulty varies, so a better question is: "Why are the problems so hard (for players of the intended rank range) on average?"

Players of a level should try to solve problems of a higher level to reach that higher level. The answers are easier than the problems, because reading can be lazy and incomplete; the detailed answers allow verification whether one's reading has been correct and reasonably complete. With only easy problems, correctness and completeness of reading are trained insufficiently. Harder problems motivate a player to surpass his current level by investing more effort in problem solving than he is previously used to.

Easy problems are for accelerating one's reading of familiar techniques. Somewhat hard problems motivate surpassing one's current scope of reading. Too hard problems would be a glimpse into one's future of later study.

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why does the book's name contain “Problems” when the actual focus is explaining techniques? [...]
I don't know what Jasiek plans with this series


The series shall offer both problems for improving one's reading and theory (and techniques) for easing and guiding this process. Problems and answers cover more space than explanation of theory. Certainly, the series could also have been called Life and Death Problems and Techniques, but too long book titles (supplemented by subtitles) are impractical.

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 Post subject: Re: Review "Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics"
Post #4 Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 4:52 am 
Judan

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I have the following very rough plan for further volumes of the Life and Death Problems series:

2: Ko + Capturing Race
3: Intermediate Techniques + Reading
4: Standard Shapes
5: Corner Shapes
6: Advanced

The order etc. of the volumes can change. If(!) indeed I include capturing races in Vol. "2", this topic will have only little theory, because the Capturing Races series is the theory-heavy series on the topic.

Probably, I will write other books in between.

Concerning the Capturing Races series, please write me an email.

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