looking for a good book

[justin smith]

hi im looking for a book to help a 5k to get to 1dan If you have any books like that please post the name or the link thank you

[RBerenguel]

The general consensus (more or less) is that if you train supercharge your reading, you'll get to 1 dan. So I'd recommend doing an incredible amount of tsumegos. Easy, hard, without looking at the answer, looking at the answer, tesuji problems, shape problems and the rest.

[tchan001]

The only books I can think of off the top of my head which would claim to help you achieve that are probably So You Want to Play Go? Level 3 and So You Want to Play Go? Level 4. Supposedly Level Three is for 9k-1k and Level 4 is for 1D-4D

In general, you need to figure out what areas you are lacking and read books on those. Especially improving your reading skills to match those of the level you desire. Most people do this by doing lots of daily tsumegos.

[jts]

What books/ problems have you done already?

Whether you haven't seen the Elementary Go Series yet or have already read all of them, it can't hurt to read through them again. Past that the 5k -> 1d period seems to me like the perfect time to read most Go books that I've seen. And of course, don't stop solving problems - but everyone has their own favorite themes/series.

[RobertJasiek]

You need more than one book. If you want to read many books,

http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/isbn.html

gives you a list of books useful for that purpose (read all books with Rank Improvement + or better and all books with Topical Coverage o or better, but omit the too difficult problem books until you are a (mid) dan player). If you want to read only a few books, read the English books with Rank Improvement ++ that you have not read earlier or for that you have not read alternative books with equivalent, equally complete contents.

Furthermore, you need a broad overview on go theory. You can acquire this in different ways. E.g., specialising in joseki or in life+death or extensive reading of every topic of go theory can work. Whichever topic you do not specialise in until about 1d, you will need to learn later as a low dan player.

If you want to read just a few books, hoping to grasp their contents well and that it will suffice, I recommend

- Fighting Fundamentals (*)
- Joseki 2 Strategy (*)
- Positional Judgement 1 / Territory
- ca. 2 life and death problem books (unless you specialise in life and death; then you need more books)

Additionally, you can read these books with (partly much) less theory but more problems:

- Attack and Defense
- Strategic Concepts of Go (IIRC, it is now called The Basics of Go Strategy, which is a by far too mighty title)
- Fundamental Principles

You might also read these three books before *, if you find that * contain more knowledge than you can learn quickly or if you want more problems. Alternatively, you can read * thrice: learn 1/3, become stronger, then read the next 1/3 of more demanding contents.

The books (or more books for that rank range) might make you 1d or maybe only 1k, in which case you also need to add books for the 1k to 3d project. Needless to say, it is possible that the books alone do not make you stronger or strong enough; then also play more, review your games more, ask club teachers, pay for a teacher with the skill to identify your weaknesses quickly, solve more problems to improve your reading skill, read also more (less useful) books, quit your job and concentrate on go (or maybe not), be patient or accept that you might have hit your personal limit.

Why are the mentioned books good for the 5k to 1d project? In this range, one must learn at all those aspects of fighting (attack, defense, combined attack and defense), strategic concepts and choices, and territorial positional judgement one has not learnt thus far. (Dan players then improve their knowledge about those and other aspects.)