The Japanese title of this book, by Takemiya Masaki, is アマが理解できない４つの常識. The publisher is MyCom (2009), and it is ISBN978-4-8399-3094-3.

For the purposes of this review, I will assume that Takemiya himself wrote the text, although I am well aware that ghostwriting is a common practice. There's no way of knowing, short of asking the man himself.

The book has three sections: first, introductory remarks and advice about getting stronger; second, chapters about each of the common sense principles alluded to in the title, and finally chapters of problems, one chapter for each principle.

The opening chapters contain similar material to other books by Takemiya, and the general thrust is that if you want to get stronger you need to change your attitude. He says losing is a good thing, because you can learn from it and not repeat the mistake, and that you should play where you want to play. This is not to play tenuki all the time, but rather to have the innocent attitude of a child - children are not worried about making silly moves, and so try out all kinds of things and learn quickly. Adults, in contrast, have their pride. If you play where you really feel like playing, then you will make mistakes and learn from them. For studying, Takemiya specifically recommends solving easy tsumego, playing over professional games, and learning basic joseki (and he adds it's okay to forget them!). As for amateur faults, he identifies territory surrounding, ignorance about status, failure to distinguish necessary and unnecessary moves, and the willingness to make bad shape.

This leads to the four principles.

1) Play where your opponent would like to play (相手の打ちたいところに打つ）
2) Don't surround territory　(地は囲わない)
3) Be aware of status (身分をわきまえる)
4) Don't make bad shape (愚形を作らない)

To understand what he means, you need to look at the examples and work through the problems. For example, my interpretation of status is that he means being aware of relative strengths and weaknesses, and positional judgement, rather than merely knowing if a group is alive, dead or unsettled. In other words, the principle is to be very aware of what is really going on over the whole board. Likewise, it becomes apparent from the chapter on not surrounding territory that there is a big difference between a big move and a passive move.

For me, the chapter on shape was especially interesting. He convincingly demonstrates that playing in good shape can gain a lot of points over time, while making poor-shape moves, even if they seem to have an excuse, generally lead to disappointment.

I really enjoyed this book. Takemiya's writing is colourful and easy to read, but never long-winded - he gets to the point. There is a sunshine feeling to his prose - I`ve never met him, but I get the strong impression of a person who sees the bigger picture, and isn't given to worrying. When reading in a second language, it helps a lot when the author manages to communicate an endearing personality through his words. The problems are challenging, but never incomprehensible, and they feature very realistic game situations. I recognised a lot of my own real-game mistakes in the "failure" diagrams!

The book is printed on sturdy paper, (roughly 8x5 inches) and is well bound, and has a thick dust-jacket with a picture of a puzzled-looking Takemiya on the front, who is presumably wondering why amateurs just can't grasp that common sense...

I think the problems in this book would be useful to anybody, even if they did not know any Japanese, provided they knew which section of the book the problem came from, and how to identify "correct" (正解）from "failure" （失敗) diagrams. Obviously, though, the more Japanese you know, the more you will get out of the book.

I will leave you with the obligatory sample problem.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c From "Play Where the Opponent Would Like to Play"
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O X . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O X X . . . X . O . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . a . . . . . X X . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . O X X . X . . . , b . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . O X X O . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . O O X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

It's black's move. Do you play on a huge scale with A or do you play the big point at B?

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Pasta of Muppets, pulled into strings
Twisted fusilli, macaroni with cream,
Filled up with me you can`t taste a thing,
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I suppose that Black will play B, securing territory while threatening to enlarge his Moyo.

Black A seems to be too loose. There are strong positions of White both in the upper left, and the upper right, so it is very unlikely that Black can gain much in the upper part of the board.

With this move, Black sets his only hopes at the lower part of the board, but White will play at B, and ruin much of Black's investment there.

The problem looks like demonstrating principle 1).

_________________
The really most difficult Go problem ever: http://www.dgob.de/dgoz/trmdpe/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyoron #120 (still unresolved by professionals, maybe solved by three amateurs)

I want a hint. Which section is the problem from?

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

The caption says 'From "Play Where the Opponent Would Like to Play"'.

Thanks for the excellent review Tami. Where might one acquire books like these?

Joaz, thanks for directing me to this online book store. Awesome (and free shipping!!)

_________________
Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

Also...

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%82%A2%E3%83 ... 093&sr=8-1

If you get other books, it may come out cheaper than yesasia.

Thank you Joaz and Oren for these links. They're very helpful and I'll enjoy browsing these two websites this evening.

Takemiya made a big point about "making good shape" in his commentary of a recent NHK TV tournament game. I'm paraphrasing, but he said that it is the player that plays the best shape throughout the game that will win, as it is "good shape" that is precisely what will yield points eventually. He went on to say that it is this advice that he frequently gives to amateurs: make good shape.

Gee, all of my opponents would play at "b".

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Sheik Yerbuti -- if that really is your name --

Does he also say what he considers "good shape" to be?

A naive question: When he says "Don't surround territory" does he mean do not surround it until an invasion or reduction makes you do so and/or leave it until the endgame to do so?

He showed examples briefly during the game commentary.

He likes to make statements like that. More examples: "Play what you want! Don't read! With these principles, I became 9p!" While this can be applied for large scale opening moves, for close combat tactics, it is utter nonsense.

I think the point he's trying to make is don't play a move with the singular purpose of trying to surround territory. In many of his games he gets a large moyo by playing forcing moves against his opponents. He doesn't try to just map out a big space.