I am so bad at endgame that I usually just count on losing 15 points in the endgame itself so I play to get at least that much advantage in middle game. I guess it's just a silly tool I learned myself to compensate for poor endgame skills.

Which are the best beginner books or tutorials to learn the proper endgame techniques?

As an SDK you are hardly a beginner.

IMO the best place to start is with endgame tesuji. Don't worry about calculating the size of plays yet. You have to know (potentially) correct play to do that. Learn correct play first.

Fortunately, there are good resources online. For instance, http://senseis.xmp.net/?GokyoSeimyoTsumegoSeries . SL calls these tsumego problems, but they are really endgame problems involving play inside the opponent's "territory". That's a good place to start because you learn how to turn the tables at the very end of the game. Most of the problems do not seem to show the solutions on SL. You can look at the problems and then check the solutions in the book, which you can download from Waseda University. http://archive.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kosho/wo09/wo09_04079/ The book is volume 3.

Volume 2 of the Gokyo Seimyo is also good for endgame technique. Those problems start on page 13. Here is the first one.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Black to play
$$ ------------------------
$$ . . . . . O . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . X O . . O . . |
$$ . . X X . X O O X O . . |
$$ . . , . . X X X O O . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

Become a killer in the endgame.

Good luck!

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"Drooling Banjos"

Problem:

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Occupy Babel!

Answer: viewtopic.php?p=218129#p218129

Hi,
It depends if you look for endgame tesuji, or endgame fundamentals.

First find some reviews about the book The Endgame, by Tomoko Ogawa and James Davies. Robert Jasiek just gave a bad review about it, but in my club, I've heard that it was a good book.

Among my books, there are two that explain the basics of endgame (double sente, reverse sente, double gote, big endgame, small endgame...) : Learn to Play Go vol 5, by Janice kim and Jeong Soo-Hyun, 49 pages about endgame. It also explains how to count the exact value of the moves. And First Fundamentals, by Robert Jasiek, 19 pages about endgame.
I've also got Endgame Fundamentals, by Robert Jasiek, but I've not read it yet. It seems to deal with endgame in a very broad way : any situation where the status of the groups can't change anymore, be it during the opening, the middle game or the endgame.

@hyperpape:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ ------------------------
$$ . 4 1 O . O O X . . . . |
$$ 6 3 2 5 . X O . X O . . |
$$ . . X X . X O O X O . . |
$$ . . , . . X X X O O . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

Looks like a big ko. White can play if he has threats.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).