Hi all, just wondering if anyone has bought/read or seen these books, aside from vol. 2 which I have seen reviewed here. In particular I'd like to know how they compare to the elementary series, as far as contents, structure, level, accessibility etc.

I received the newest book (A Survey of the Basic Tesujis) two days ago. It's my first book of this series and I was wondering if the other books were like this too. I really dislike the layout, which reminds me of math class like assignments. They present a couple of diagrams and below will be the questions, where you have to find the right question for the diagrams in question. After six or so problems, there will be the answers on the following couple pages. There is no way, you can grind these problems really fast (as suggested), because you have first to figure out what you have to do and where to find the right diagram for the right question/task. Also, I already found 3 typos, being on page 6 and I'm not even a native English speaker.

One good thing: the Solutions are somewhat detailed and explain different variations.

edit: I expected a problem book like 'Get strong at Tesuji' or '1001 L&D' which I both own - those are really great books.

Thanks DinoKino,
I've got a heap of questions, if you don't mind!

Do you have or have you seen the Davies Tesuji book? If so, how does it compare, in structure, coverage of different tesuji, difficulty of problems.

Are the tesuji grouped by types? How much explanatory text is there?

Maybe you could type out the table of contents for us? How many pages is the book?

Hi zac,

I don't mind at all, I think there should be far more Information about Go books out there

I am currently at work, so I can't type out all of the 38 chapters eventhough I have the book with me. Those chapters are named after tesuji like 'crawling','turning', 'atari', 'pushing' and so on. So yes, they are grouped together by type and I guess we can trust the cover description, that there are 182 problems for 45 different tesujis covered. Some have more and some less problems. The introduction to each tesuji is explained by an example on usually less than one page.

The book has 212 pages and should sizewise be about identical with the 'Mastering the Basics' series. So there is somewhat more tesuji 'in there', as in the book by Davies. But I just checked the Davies book out at senseis and it says, it contains 264 problems. It is far too early for me to review or even criticize the books, but from a first impression I would say, that both books are very similar and they just wanted to produce a new book for the massess, that is really not needed. The new book is bigger and therefore easier to hold and the explanations in the new book seem a bit longer (I would have to re-check the Davies book for that) but due to the bad layout, the usage of space feels a bit wasteful. If you own an iPad or a MAC, I would suggest getting the gobooks-app and buy the Davies book. If you want the real thing, it is hard so say (for me). I really liked 'Get Strong at Tesuji' and that is why I feel a bit disappointed with 'A Survey of the Basic Tesujis'.

Did anybody read the 'Basics of Life and Death'? Is it also a remake of the EGS-book?

This reads a bit like a "Dictionary of Basic Tesuji" kind of book. Which is similary not really fit for grinding the problems but for looking-up Tesuji for various situations.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Yes, I was thinking the same. Unfortunately the book cover tells us to go through 'A Survey of the Basic Tesujis' quick twice (while checking the answers without pondering too long) and then go through it again in more detail and confirm the results. This is supposed to improve your intuition or pattern recognition skills. Get Strong at Tesuji is far better suited for this I would say.

the table of contents is available on this website http://www.variantes.com/livres-jeu-go-tactique-problemes-tsumego/44850-a-survey-of-the-basic-tesujis-road-map-to-shodan-vol4-9784906574858.html

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I am John. John-I-Am.

Thank you all.

It would appear that the Roadmap to Shodan and the Elementary series books on tesuji are quite similar. It makes me wonder wether it would be worth owning both. And if indeed they are so similar, presumably aimed at the same market, what Kiseido hopes to achieve. Surely so many potential customers would already own the Davies book, or prefer to buy that as it already has such a good reputation.

From looking at the Roadmap book on Life and Death's TOC, it would appear again that it is similar to the Elementary book, or perhaps the Get Strong At book.

I wish I could have a chance to look at the books myself. The opening/middle game one still sounds somewhat interesting. I'm not too sure what I could learn from a book about handicap go and the san-ren-sei, and wonder again if it wouldn't be covering the same or very similar ground the the Elementary book on handicap go (not that I own that particular one).

I am interested to see what they do with the future volumes. I'm not so excited about books about specific openings, but the books on attacking weak groups, and on sabaki/settling groups/making good shape could be interesting. I hope for something more than covering the same things that Attack and Defense already has. I wonder also if their book about the endgame will have the same effect as the Davies/Ogawa one had on me, with my eyes just glazing over...

There are thousands of tesujis / tesuji-related shape moves. So reading several books on tesujis is good. The question rather is: does a beginner (or slightly above beginner level player) need two tesuji books? Maybe not (he would rather also need books on other topics). For 5k+ though, reading more is useful for sure. (Unfortunately, I have not seen the Roadmap tesuji book, and cannot say anything specific about it.)



Stop hoping and start reading: Fighting Fundamentals.

Can someone give a rank estimate that this book is aimed at? I think the title is very misleading. I highly doubt there is a book from 30k to 1d on tesuji, tsumego, or any of the other topics out there.

This review (http://www.bengozen.com/book-review-roa ... -volume-2/) concerning the second book of the series, "The Basic Prin­ci­ples of the Open­ing and the Mid­dle Game", estimates that players around 10k would get the most out of it.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Please stop selling your books in threads about other books. It is very rude. Thank you.

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- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

Technically he was just answering an implied question for a book which has a similar theme to Attack and Defense. And there aren't very many out there, so his reference to Fighting Fundamentals seems a valid response to me.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Dude has a history of pimping his books throughout L19, and imho, should no longer get "technical" benefit of the doubt. I believe he's been warned about it before, and should know better.

That said, I don't care enough to report the spam post or to get in an extended argument. I guess by that reasoning, I shouldn't have cared enough to call him out in the first place...

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- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

Recommending a book is not "selling" a book. The mentioned book is an essential recommendation. I do make essential recommendations. I do not participate in hiding relevant books.

I guess I'll find out for myself what "A Survey of Basic Tesuji" is like - I just ordered it (along with "Tactical Reading"). Personally I don't think I'll be disappointing with either book though I do hope the problems in the "survey" aren't just recycled from the other Kiseido publications (which I already own). I'll post my review on L19 if I feel I have something useful to contribute.

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I am John. John-I-Am.

Even if you don't end up doing a full review, just posting some impressions and comparison with the EGS books would be nice.
A full review on Tactical Reading would be awesome to see, too. I'm quite curious about RJ's books and enjoy seeing people's opinions on them.

I was going to buy several of the Roadmap books while they had a sale on, but ended up going with a local supplier who also gives me free shipping and picked up several more widely-reviewed books.

Thanks for the kind words zac. I think it'll be harder to summarize Robert's book but I'll have a go

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I am John. John-I-Am.

Hm well "A survey of Basic Tesuji" arrived today and I've spent an hour or so reading it so far. It's pretty much as I expected and I'm pleased I got a copy. As DinoKino said in each chapter there's a worked example followed by a number of problems. Unlike DinoKino I'm really liking it, with the exception of when answers start on the same page as the problems (not always the case though). So for me it's a problem book with a worked example and with the hint that the solution involves a hane (or whichever move the chapter talks about). It seems like a good way to practice solving tesuji problems, training the mind to see that particular sort of move (I think it might work better than grouping according to the higher level motive which Elementary Go Series Tesuji does).

With regards 'grinding' these problems, it's not strictly the suggested way of approaching them (as I understand grinding). For the "high kyu" player it is suggested they go through it quickly at first, not spending too long and going with the best guess - but even then only doing around 20 an hour - so spending 3 minutes on each - not 5 seconds then turning straight to the answer. I've been doing around this with a fairly good success rate so far.

Before it arrived I started doing some problems from 501 Tesuji Problems, I was getting a good 7/9 right with 5/9 solved fairly quickly. The problems in A survey of Basic Tesuji (I'll refer to it by its code K85 from now on) seem a similar level to the 5/9 in 501 Tesuji - with the added benefit of the hint of which move to consider (though not always the first move). The author suggests that after completing K85 501 Tesuji is a good follow on - and so far I definitely agree.

Would I recommend buying K85 even if you have Elementary Go Series Tesuji? - I would. Would I recommend buying Elementary Go Series Tesuji if you've already bought K85? - I would also. EGS: Tesuji and K85 have completely different structures. - the only qualifier is that personally I don't think you can have too many problem books (or do too many problems) and there's plenty of problems in each. When I need to learn something I often get hold of several books on the subject at once and two tesuji books with different approaches to teaching tesuji is something I'm very happy to have.

I've not been looking for typos but it seems pretty well edited to me, nothing that was distracting. The physical quality of the book is the same high level as other Kiseido publications. Overall I have a good impression of this volume in the Roadmap to Shodan series and will be buying others in the future.


For the record I have copies of the Slate & Shell Fujisawa Shuko Dictionary of Basic Tesuji (vol1-4) and a Taiwanese copy of the Go Seigen Tesuji Dictionary set but I haven't studied them enough to be able to compare to K85 - however these both span multiple volumes. I suspect they will make a good next stage after K85 and 501 Tesuji Problems.

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I am John. John-I-Am.