Topazg: When I was thirteen my French teacher thought she would help her students out my putting a big poster that said
There are different learning styles, of course, and sometimes an expert is writing specifically for an audience of peers, which tends to lead to the sort of writing where if you start in the middle it's impossible to tell whether the author is talking about a proposition he accepts or a mistake he rejects. This kind of approach is sometimes unavoidable, but it's an awful way to introduce someone to a subject; commonly, he'll read the book and get about half of what the author wrote backwards, because he remembers which subjects were emphasized, and probably some of the pros and cons, but not whether the author ultimately accepted or rejected it.
"Kage's Secrets Chronicles" has four games, right? If I just wanted to get good at playing black, I personally would stick to the pro-pro games. If I wanted ideas for how white can profit from passive play, I would look at the pro-ama games.
Cyclops: How extensively have you looked at this? I have hunches, but if you've already looked at a ton of games I don't want to spend an hour mucking around, reduplicating your research.