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 Post subject: Why advice for players 25k-10k to never read books?
Post #1 Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2017 10:55 pm 
Judan

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Reference: forum/viewtopic.php?p=222871#p222871

The advice originates from an age when all books, except for books for absolute newbies and Second Book of Go, were written for 10k or stronger (or maybe 12k or stronger). At that time, the advice was essentially good. Lots of players grew up then, now are stronger than 10k, have not read the new beginner books and so still give the same advice that might have been correct at their time.

Another reason is that, with some minimum "talent" and right circumstances, such as a go club with good advice for beginners, many absolute beginners make it to 15k quickly, often within ca. 2 weeks. Obviously, such beginners do not need any books until at least 15k. For those beginners, the advice of not reading books yet makes sense. Playing and listening to, e.g., verbal advice are sufficient.

Things can be much different from 15 to 10k (EGF ranks). Many beginners need much longer to 10k than they need to 15k. Nowadays, countless books are useful (also) for 15 to 10k players.

Therefore, nowadays, the real question remains whether or why players 25 to 15k should never read books. If you need more than 2 or 3 weeks to reach (EGF) 15k, books can be very useful. Nowadays, there are some useful to very useful books for this range on some topics but other topics are still not covered. Apart from the books for absolute newbies (who did not know the rules or what the game of go was at all), books particularly suitable for 25 to 15k (but partly also for stronger players) include these:

- Graded Go Problems for Beginners 1
- maybe Graded Go Problems for Beginners 2
- First Fundamentals
- First Life and Death
- Learn to Play Go 1

And countless further books that are problem books with very easy problems, but I do not know all the titles. Another book that I wish existed but is still missing would be about tactical reading, like Tactical Reading written for 25 to 15k. Currently, beginners need to refer to problem books and get the related theory of tactical reading by themselves, from verbal advice or the hints in First Fundamentals and Tesuji (Davies) chapter 1.

Note that I have not listed books useful much more for stronger players, such as 15 to 10k. Such as Lessons in the Fundamentals and Opening Theory Made Easy. First read the books mentioned above to become 15k.

Then there are players giving advice that only a few early published theory books (besides problem books) were suitable for 15k to 7d. See, e.g., sparky314's advice in forum/viewtopic.php?p=222874#p222874 . Such advice is very bad because it overlooks many very useful newer theory books. See also
https://senseis.xmp.net/?GoBooks
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/isbn.html
http://www.gobooks.info/
So when 15k or stronger, keep an open mind.

(Usually, when a thread is started in another forum and the forum rules require a reply to be in the Go Books forum, I change the subject to On "Subject" or "Subject" - Books. However, the maximum number of characters per thread title inhibits either style. In this case, I need to shorten the thread title to avoid using the same for two different threads in two different forums. In general, it would be easier if the original threads about books were started where they belong: in the Go Books or Go Book Reviews forums.)

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