I'm leaving for a 10 days holiday trip to Norway next week. We have a lot of commute time ahead (planes, train), as well as some time we'll have to be "home" because it may be too cold to wander in the dark. I'll be bringing only Go books and Teach Yourself Norwegian (I love learning languages and when I'm in the country I'm more inspired to give everything a shot, I already have some vocabulary learnt). The question is what to bring/read, Go related.

Caveat: I'm playing in the Barcelona Go Tournament Feb. 18th, so maybe (MAYBE) a strategy book won't be good, since learning new strategy usually makes you play slightly worse until you "get it". On the other hand, some "conditioning" to get to the tournament in good shape is important, keep this in mind when recommending

What can I bring/read there?

Yi Ch'ang Ho's selected (tesuji & tsumego) Vol 2: This is definitely coming
The Direction of play
Opening theory made easy (I'm in the last chapters already, so...)
Attack and Defense (I stopped a while ago reading it, during the invading 3 space extensions or around that)
In the beginning (I've only read the first chapter)
Segoe's Tesuji Dictionary (this one is hard, you know...)
1001 LD problems (Finished the first 100)
Graded Go problems for beginners, vol 3 (I just finished section 1, the easy ones)
Tesuji (I've read it several times already, but it's always interesting)
Get strong at the endgame (still not started with it)
Killer of Go (in my iPad, I've read 3 chapters, I'll be bringing it of course)
Tesuji and antisuji of Go (in my iPad, I've read 10 or 11 sujis)
DailyJoseki (I'm reviewing josekis there, great work Daniel)

What should I read given this list? What will get me more ready for a real life tournament?

I may be missing some other book lying in my bedside table, so if you think of something that should definitely be read (no, Lessons in the fundamentals no, I've read it not long ago), let me know quickly and maybe tomorrow I can borrow from someone or hurry and buy it if available.

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

I would avoid taking strategy books (and myself I'd leave the ipad too since my tablet is often just a distraction when I have time to study) and just take something that you'll benefit from having as the only option (okay I guess that could apply to any). I think just 1001 L&D should be enough for a 10 day trip but to be safe perhaps another problem book. I've read some of your posts and I don't think you're stronger than me at tsumego. I'm working though 1001 LD myself right now. The 1 move problems were easy, the 3 move problem required a bit of thought and the 5 move problems have made me slow right down - but I find them doable. Easily enough to fill a 10 day trip.

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I am John. John-I-Am.

Two books for a 10 day trip is to little for my taste, but such a long list that You made is surely to much. We can't digest so much knowledge in such a short time, unless we are desperate I know it is not so exciting and it is harder to find motivation to do so, but I think that taking less books and for example reread them all would be more beneficial.

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Formerly Gorim

CnP:

Leaving theiPad is not an option, I enjoy writing on the go and the iPad plus bluetooth keyboard is too good. Also keeping up with RSS, Instapaper... No tech is impossible for me

Gorim:

I'll only bring one or two, not the whole list! This would fit all my suitcase

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

So far 1001 LD problems looks like the winner... Any more voters?

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

It's too late for this trip, but you should add in a game collection or two, 1971 Honinbo, Kamakura, etc... You can get Go World Archive from Kiseido Digital and have a ton available but generally a bit lower quality due to space. You can download their trial magazine to your tablet and read it.

@Oren:

I have a set of SGF files of Dosaku's games, a book in Chinese with some games of Jowa (XD) and all the games coming in SmartGo Kifu, do some of these qualify (I didn't add the book because I found it pointless)

I can download SGFs of Go Game Guru's commented games still. Game collections, I have none, except for that freely available book on Go Seigen's games. I'm not a big fan of game collections, maybe I need to find the correct one to move me.

Oh, and I have downloaded a bunch of British Go magazine, around 1992-1996 to catch Hunter's crosscut and monekey jump workshops.

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

No, I'm thinking professional games with fairly full commentary. I can't comment on the British Journal, but just bunch of sgf are not what I'm thinking about.

Sample pages from Kamakura
http://www.slateandshell.com/pdfs/items ... 0Pages.pdf

After Kamakura you can always become an addict and get Go Consultants, Final Summit, 9 Dan Showdown, Old Fuseki vs New Fuseki...

I guess thinking again, you could get 9 Dan Showdown first if only because it has the most games. You do miss some of the history though.

1971 Honinbo is a bit different, but it is one of my favorites.

I'm not a huge fan of studying professional games either... sometimes it's worthwhile to consult the database to see how professionals played a given corner or fuseki, but picking up a random pro game and understanding the moves, even with commentary, is rather hard.

I think a better idea would be if you grabbed the game of someone 3-5 stones stronger and had them walk you through it. I've never tried that, but presumably 80%+ of the game would make sense to you, and the few moves that didn't could be explained and you'd learn something that would be easy to apply to your own games. You could pick up some wrong ideas this way, but those aren't that hard to unlearn as you get stronger.

A sample issue I have with studying pro games: most of the tesuji go unplayed, but their implicit threat shapes the whole game. So if you try and play something like a pro, and your opponent plays the vulgar move that doesn't work because some brilliant tesuji exists that you don't know, you're boned.

Obviously when you're in the dans and the pros are only 3-5 stones stronger, the games open up and make sense (I would guess )

Of the few pro games I've tried to really go through with commentary and study, the few ideas I thought were clever were the moves criticized in the commentary. (eg: "vulgar play that just helps the opponent").

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1k KGS

"Direction of play" or "Interesting points" or "How to induce" (all not go related )

I recommend adding "The Games of Fujisawa Shuko" on you iPad. The commentary is great and due to the change of opponent in each series of games, you get a nice change of pace/emphasis each time.

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

tsumego tsumego tsumego