Making a Professional kifu book

[Just Go already]

I'm thinking of using go4go or a similar site to download Professional games to make my own collection of 100 or so kifu so that I can study and get a feel for direction of play from the best. Of Course, at around 20 kyu my level of understanding from replaying their games will be lacking, but at least I can play out some modern Joseki and Fuseki.

It would be nice to know that I will have such a collection that I will still get a lot of knowledge out of for years to come. I would like 100 games from different assortment of top players, the stronger the better! It will make a nice thick book on my shelf. Does anyone have any suggestions of high quality modern games to add to such a collection?

[jlt]

In my opinion, learning modern josekis is not necessary at this stage. Until mid-SDK level, the number of josekis that people actually use is very small. If you try to play other josekis, your opponents will deviate from them.

Concerning pro games, I've heard advice to look at Japanese games from the 1970s, which are easier to understand than modern games.

On the other hand, if you really want strong and modern players, why not look at Alphago games?

[Jujube]

Do you have any players that you like? I'd maybe go through their games. Or maybe you can go through all the games played in a large international tournament, or all of the games from the Japanese big 7 in the last few years.

FWIW my former teacher says that reading pro games is important to gradually improve your feeling of shape. If shapes are in your games, but are absent in pro games, then that shape should not exist unless there is a good reason.

Maybe you can look at players, e.g. Lee Chang-ho or Hane Naoki, who tend to avoid complications and knife-edge fighting that none of us can understand easily. Maybe you can also look at players who are territorial vs. influence oriented, or thick positions vs. living with weak groups. E.g. Shibano Toramaru, Imamura Toshiya, Cho U.

[Revilo]

Concerning pro games, I've heard advice to look at Japanese games from the 1970s, which are easier to understand than modern games.

My humble opinion would likely not pass muster as advice, but I actually enjoyed (and still do) playing through Japanese games from the period of about 1950 to 1970. Takagawa Kaku in particular was a bit of my favourite. In general the games from that period have, in my eyes, mostly a more flowing style (honte, nice shapes, less go-for-the-throat-fighting than modern games - leave aside Sakata Eio here ).

[Just Go already]

I do like Lee Chang Ho's no nonsense style of playing, he just consistently plays by the book and he has an amazing endgame. It's probably the same reason why I don't care too much for Lee Sedol's style of play, he makes too many unnecessary risky moves which would just be complicated to learn an understand of why he made such a move.

It does puzzle me why people say that learning josekis early in your career is unnecessary until later around dan level. I don't care about how quickly or slowly I improve at the game. Sure, I might see more progress hypothetically putting in 5000 hours of tsumego now, but sooner or later I might have to put in 5000 hours of joseki study to improve. The way I see it is that after 10,000 hours of go study over many years I should have progressed just as much no matter which order I studied in. Of course, nothing is black and white and I intend to study both at the same time.

[jlt]

If you like to learn josekis, then go ahead, it won't hurt. But be aware that you won't be able to apply many of them in your games for a while.

[SoDesuNe]

I made three such "books" (loose printouts of 100 moves per diagram) of Honinbo Shuei, Go Seigen and Chen Yaoye because I liked their styles. But I limited the games to the times in which I considered them at their peak:

- Honinbo Shuei from 1896 until his death
- Go Seigen from 1942 until his accident 1961
- Chen Yaoye from 2007 (ongoing)

In my opinion it does help to develop a feeling for the flow of a game but it requires time. I tried to replay three games a day but not sure how long I lasted ^^

[Ian Butler]

Of course, nothing is black and white

What game are you playing?

[Just Go already]

Of course, nothing is black and white

What game are you playing?

Yeah, I laughed after reading that back too