Hi all,
I'm here again to entertain you with my review of Robert's Positional Judgement 1: Territory. As for who I am, currently "4k?" in KGS (with a 4k blitz account, so I guess I could remove the question mark if I did actually play XD) and 1176 GoR (9k officially.) In a few days I hope this will get closer to EGF 8k.
You can take a look at my previous
review of Fighting Fundamentals to read about shipping, diagramming and get an idea of physical appearance (differences: Positional Judgement 1: Territory has a purplish cover with some lotus-like flowers and yellow spine.)
Who can read the book? My personal opinion is that even a 15k EGF can get the basis to be able to count during the game, easily. For the latter chapters being stronger is important.
TL;DR: I liked the book in itself, but 1: it needs *you* to work and the subject is incredibly dry.
It has taken me far longer to write a review Positional Judgement 1: Territory (from now on PJ) than it took me to review Fighting Fundamentals. I finished PJ just before Christmas, but I've wanted to test what I learnt with a few games.
Knowing whether you are ahead or behind in a game is invaluable. If you could have an invisible djinn telling you the current score once in a game or one who could tell you the status of a group once in a game, you'd be far more likely to win your games with the first than with the second. And as important as it is, it's an almost untouched branch in writing (here I'm referring to English literature, since the topic is also covered in
a book Lee Chang'Ho wrote/ghost wrote and J. Fairbairn summarized for us.) It is partially covered in Attack and Defense (where only an approximate, direct comparison is included,) ever so slightly touched in The Endgame and only analysed in depth, as far as I know, in Cho Chikun's High Speed Game Analysis (HSGA from now on). PJ is a relatively refreshing book in this aspect, specially because the writing is very clear in what to do and how to do it. But a thing to bear in mind is that the subject in itself (so, this is not a criticism of this book, but also would easily include Cho's book) is as boring as watching paint dry.
In PJ we are introduced into how to count a game during very late fuseki and middlegame. Of course, the method also works for endgame situations, but in the latter stages of the game direct counting works essentially the same, being faster. The basic building block is made of a method for counting first black and then white, with essentially mild reductions for (and from) both sides (first white reduces *all* black territory to count black's, then reverse to count white's.) There are some technicalities regarding sente, gote, defense and what boils down to "how much to reduce and why." This basic building block is similar to the method introduced in HSGA (which I sadly don't have to compare right now, I have only borrowed it on occasions.) What PJ adds are ways to estimate moyos (with an averaging method) and fighting areas (via quiescence, which is a term borrowed from game theory/AI AFAIK.)
For me, the most useful part was the basic territory estimation. Although I had read HSGA, I had a hard time using the method until reading PJ and working through the examples. Throughout all the book I tried to apply the method to each example (covering the next page if needed to avoid spoiling the fun) and see if I got a similar result. Surprisingly, I was always within 1-2 points of the correct answer, which for me validated the fact that the method was sound and I was relatively good at using it. There's a catch though: it took me up to 1'30 to count a relatively normal position when I started. With practice I got to 45'' for a simple position, but in any case this still feels like too much in a normal KGS game (I usually play 30'+5x30'') even if I'm a fast player.
Once I got to the moyo and quiescence sections my mind started to wander. Evaluating moyos is relatively easy, but quiescence is harder to come by. When you are in a life-or-death situation, unsure about how the fight is going to evolve (will I misread? will the opponent find a wonderful tesuji?) it is hard to find a cool-down sequence, specially if you are busy reading out real, fighting variations.
There are also sections on how to keep the counts updated, as well as a minor strategy guide (like the little brother of Fighting Fundamentals, which is the one I'd recommend for strategy.) As far as layout and diagramming goes, PJ1 is of the same high quality as FF, but in this case diagrams are usually one or two per page (full boards) with explanations by the side, specially when doing reduction counting.
During some games this January I've been trying to count, but the results have been mixed. In one game I counted the game as close, expecting to pull a win in yose. I was wrong (lost sente and the game.) In another game I didn't count and didn't realise I was ahead (by 20, more or less)... Went for the extra 0.5 point in a pointless ko, misread and lost the game. So, it's clear that counting is needed... As well as good judgement. The book will give you the tools, now it's up to you how you use them.
This month I have a tournament, and I'll gladly use this new ability of "counting" as often as I can. Having 45 minutes in the clock guarantees I'm unlikely to hit byo-yomi, so I expect to count 2-3 times, and being able to decide what to do and why based on it. So, the takeaway should be that this is a book you need to check... Essentially because there are only two books covering the subject and this is the best of the two.