I got this new book from Kiseido (http://www.kiseido.com/dan.htm) the other day. While I'm far from being a dan player, I think there's a lot in this book that is good for people at my SDK level as well.

Since opening theory doesn't involve the same type of pattern recognition as, say, tesujis or life and death, understanding opening theory is less a kyu vs. dan issue than other techniques. Good opening principles are the same at any level, and there's no reason why kyus can't learn from a "dan level" book on the opening.

The book is in two sections: opening and middle game, and all the problems are whole-board problems. The opening section has three parts. The first part, Urgent Moves Before Big Moves, has 50 problems where you are asked to choose among four moves. Since you are given choices, this is more accessible to us lowly kyus than if you were asked to choose from the many possible points on the board. I found myself, in the first dozen or so problems I looked at, getting around half of them right. For the others, the explanations help me understand my weaknesses in the opening.

The second part, Flexibly Thinking in the Opening, has another 50 problems; 40 of them offer choices from A to D, and the last ten let you choose any point on the board.

Part three, 7-Dan Opening Problems, has 27 problems, with no suggestions.

The middle game part of the book - 129 whole-board problems - has three sections, about Planning, Fighting and Finding the Knockout Blow. I haven't looked at these problems yet.

No matter what, the opening section of this book will be useful to me, and probably to other SDKs. I'm guessing that the middle-game section will be above my head, for now, but I'll look through the problems. I find whole-board problems interesting, because you can take a bit of time and try and find at least the right area to play, and the solutions can help prod you in the right direction.

(I have the other three books in this series, and the first two do have a lot of problems at my level. The series overall covers a very broad range, but even SDKs will find a lot of problems at their level in the different books.)

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