Hello dear fellow go players,

This last month I have decided to take it upon myself to finally dedicate myself to the game of go and have been doing daily tsumego, playing games, and doing self reviews with AI and great progress has already been made.

I figured a good next step would also be to study professional games indepth, not because it may be the most efficient way to get better, because I know it probably is not (especially at my current level). However it is something I know I enjoy, sitting at my go board and studying gives me equal amounts of pleasure as playing the actual game. I have looked at the available pro game commentaries in English, but I am not finding too much. The best of modern (I am not looking to study Shusaku) go seems to be either Relentless which isn't published anymore or the three volumes of Lee Sedol game commentaries.

However what I am really looking for is something akin to Relentless for Lee Changho, does this exist? It seems quite odd to me that there are a multitude of books on Lee Sedol yet a player that stood on top of the go world for almost 15 years has barely anything available in the English language. Perhaps I am not looking in the right places? So far I have only found his tsumego and tesuji books which appear to have been ghostwritten and a french book (which I unfortunately cannot read).

The way Lee Changho played when he was at the top of the world is not modern Go any more. I would recomend Invisible the games of alphago if you want something closer to modern Go.

There are so much changes happening because of AI that I don't know if there really are any good books on modern Go. But the book Michael Redmond is working on might change that.

Maybe this one? (Didn't read.)

https://senseis.xmp.net/?MasterPlayTheStyleOfLeeChangho

I already study that book, however it isn't very helpful at my current level because Antti Tormanen (the writer) explains very shortly and leaves a lot of analysis to the reader, the books seems to be a case of putting as many games as possible into one book (not a fan of this approach). I am aware that the way he play(ed) is not part of the modern repertoire anymore. However that is of little concern to me, because I am not a professional go player. Also his style of play is quite beneficial I believe for my current level, he plays solidly which is something I should aspire to do so aswell.

Oh I did not know about this one, thank you very much.

It's not a book, but at http://go4go.net/go/commentaries you can find over 1000 pro games from the 2000s commented by Alexander Dinerstein 3p, and there's plenty from Lee Changho in there.

Welcome to the club! And it sounds as if you might be another countryman on this forum.

It's interesting you fancy Lee ChangHo's style - I found Go at its dullest in his prime but by that token his style may be one of the more consistent ones to learn from. I would probably use his games as endgame material, for he was known as "the calculator".

Have fun!

Somewhat interestingly I tried logging in on go4go with an old account I remembered I had, but it said my IP adress has been banned!? On a side note, does anyone know who is the webmaster of the go4go site? Subsequently how I may contact him/her? As I cannot access any part of the wite now, including the help section

That does sound great, I love watching his lectures on youtube with subtitles.

@Knotwilg, I'm Dutch, so you weren't off by much! Well my fascination for Lee Changho comes mainly from the fact he plays moves I (think) understand more often than not, atleast that's what I tell myself. I find a lot of more modern games, especially the past few years, hard to follow as a lowly kyu player.

The webmaster is our own macelee. He is open to PM's so you should be able to open contact through L19.

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Yes, it is indeed a strange gap in the literature.

First of all, don't get too hung up on modern games, at least not until you're a 5 dan. With old games, the fuseki and joseki look strange, but once you get past move 50 there's plenty you can learn from, and good middlegame play makes more difference to your results than the latest joseki. Right now I'm going through Genjo-Chitoku and getting a lot out of it. Players far stronger than me have named Invincible as the most inspiring go book they've read.

Second, consider going through uncommented game records. If you can afford to send some money to the good guys, GoGoD has enough to keep you busy for several lifetimes. And of course there's Go4Go and a bunch of other free stuff online. Use your favourite software to turn SGF into printed diagrams, then sit down at your go board. Even if you don't understand the moves, the act of searching for the next move on the page and placing it on the board will be subconsciously teaching you about good shape and direction of play. As well as Lee Changho, you might find you enjoy games of Takagawa Shukaku and Otake Hideo.

Third, for a book of detailed commentaries of games that aren't ancient, try The 1971 Honinbo Tournament.

Finally, you'll find a bunch of Lee Changho commented games in the pages of Go World, something like 90 games in issues 52-108 and another 15 or so in the newer issues.

http://baduk.eu/
The Lee Changho Fan Club

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

Hmm, many ads for online casinos at that site.

Okay then a bit older games from when the japanese peaceful style was dominating should be good. I would recomend this book which is pretty popular:
"The 1971 Honinbo Tournament"
https://senseis.xmp.net/?The1971HoninboTournament

Relentless is available in PDF. The authors put it out under a CC license so you can legally download it for free.

You can get it here: https://cdn.online-go.com/relentless.pdf