New Go Seigen book - Archers of Yue

John Fairbairn · Post by **John Fairbairn** » Tue Nov 23, 2021 5:01 pm

For the first time since Slate & Shell retreated from the printed-book market, I can now (November 2021) offer a new Go Seigen book.

It is Go Seigen versus Archers of Yue. It is available on demand from Amazon at a ridiculously low price (which I've forgotten), A4 size, 136 pages, in colour.

The blurb is below, but to forestall a couple of questions first:

1. Kamakura has not been forgotten and a new Go Wisdom version is being prepared. Might even be the next book, but there's competition.

2. I looked at hard cover, but (at least for the time being) have rejected this approach. The Kindle Publishing beta app offers this only in a few countries in Europe. These require you to order in a foreign language (which is not a problem for everyone but will be for some). Then, when I tried to place an order in Germany, the app kept telling me it wouldn't deliver to the UK. I have also been told by one person that the type of cover + binding offered was used in Relentless, and it failed there. The heavy cover seems to stress the glue binding and it soon comes apart. This may be a one-off, but the other problems make the idea impractical anyway.

BLURB
Go Seigen (1914 ~ 2014) has a reputation, rightly, of being a go genius. Almost all commentaries on his games, however, relate to the times when he was in the ascendant. Times when he made very few mistakes. This creates a slightly warped view of his long career. He was not so dominant when he began that career. Indeed, he made a plethora of mistakes then. But that is not to diminish him. Seeing the kind of mistakes he made and how he learned to overcome them adds richly to a true appreciation of his enormous talent.

Among the very first games arranged for Go when he arrived in Japan at the age of 14 in October 1928 was a series of 13 games in which Go (Wu in Chinese) was likened to Sun Zi, the "Art of War" military genius who helped the kingdom of Wu in their rivalry with the kingdom of Yue. His opponents. a different one in each game but all the rising stars of the Japanese go scene, were the archers of Yue.

In all these games, now very rarely seen, Go, as a lowly 3-dan, took Black. In fact, he had Black in nearly all his games until 1933. We therefore get to see how Go mastered the art of having first move in no-komi games. Much of the time he followed Honinbo Shusaku, whose games he studied in depth in China. But we also see surprising new ideas clearly based on his equally avid study of the old Chinese masters.

All the games are given here with commentaries in Go Wisdom format, based on comments from pros of the time, including the players themselves. Anecdotal biographies are given for each opponent. A full, indexed Go Wisdom appendix is included, so that the reader can study the games to a depth well beyond that of the commentaries themselves, and also use the concept data in conjunction with data in other Go Wisdom books.

Go Wisdom is a new approach is a new way to study used in the most recent GoGoD books produced by John Fairbairn. There are several components. One is that the commentaries (all, as here, based on multiple pro opinions) are given without variation diagrams. Instead, variations are described in the text, using letters on the board as necessary. The idea - in line with the theory of effortful practice for optimal learning - is to force the reader to visualise the variations, both in their flow and their final shape, rather than just glancing at a diagram. A second major component is a large appendix in every book which discusses all the technical terms that appear in each book, and also very many that don't. The idea here is to offer the reader information that he may want but that does not appear in the text. It thus indirectly enhances and broadens the commentary, but through the efforts and thinking of the reader - again in line with best study theory. The third main component is that every technical term in the book is indexed in each book, in the GW appendix. This means that if the reader wishes to study the broader aspects of a particular concept (e.g. thickness or momentum), he can look up many commented examples in the various Go Wisdom books, which tend to be large and so have very many examples. Existing books with the Go Wisdom concept include "Genjo-Chitoku", "Games of Shuei", "The Teenage Meijin" and the various books on commented old Chinese games in the author's Museum of Go Theory project.

CDavis7M · Post by **CDavis7M** » Tue Nov 23, 2021 7:58 pm

A collection of Go Seigen's early games against 13 up and coming players -- I like it. This period of transition always interested me. And I'm interested in Beginnings. Plus, the price is reasonable. Thank you. I ordered it.

Search for B09M2XQ7NP on Amazon.

CDavis7M · Post by **CDavis7M** » Sun Nov 28, 2021 9:21 pm

I received this book already and I wanted to give some first impressions beyond the synopsis in case others are wondering whether to purchase. First a bit about what I like so that you may compare it to what you like. I really enjoy the historical background sections in Fairbairn's books. I also enjoy odd and interesting tidbits. And of course, I enjoy Go content, especially Game commentaries. And even better if "ranked down" to help along someone at my level. Archers of Yue hits all of these points for me. Further details below. Even with just the first impression, this book feels like a great purchase. I'll try to update later after I play through it.

There is a historical section on Go Seigen in the beginning. To be clear, this is a very small part of the book. But it is longer than other articles I've read on Go Seigen online, and this book only covers the early days. There's also a few pictures. I don't have Fairbairn's other books on Go Seigen so I don't know how much information is cross-covered.

There are substantial introductions to each of the "Archers," most with at least one picture. I like this part a lot.

The game commentaries are in the Go Wisdom format. Maybe "Go Wisdom" takes new meaning here

Also, the Go Wisdom index contains full paragraphs sometimes several explaining the concepts. This is something that "Teenage Meijin" does not have. Maybe these explanations were included in other books (Genjo Chitoku or Shuei)? This seems like it will be really helpful. The Japanese term is included and there is often significant discussion of how that term is used, sometimes with reference to other works.

The book is the same size as previous books but has a different format for the cover and spine. It is a bit thinner than Teenage Meijin (which had 5 games but the 5th game had a TON of AI analysis).

Also, the Go Boards showing the moves are colored. I haven't played through any games yet so I don't have much of an opinion. My first concern was readability but I compared to Teenage Meijin and it seems just as readable. My intention in providing the picture was to show the coloring. But looking now, I want to warn that this picture seems to have been overly compressed when uploaded to imgur. The diagrams are fine. The pages are large so they are decently sized. Certainly bigger than variation diagrams in other commentary books I own, but not as big as a typical "main diagram" where there is only one diagram on that page.

lichigo · Post by **lichigo** » Mon Nov 29, 2021 3:31 am

I ordered and received the book, gonna start today to study it ^^

CDavis7M · Post by **CDavis7M** » Fri Feb 11, 2022 12:01 am

I always jump around in my Go entertainment but I have been enjoying this book here and there and I thought I'd mention a few more things I like about it.

I like all of the mistakes. Given that Go and the "Archers" were newer professionals, there are more mistakes than you would find in most game commentaries. You get the normal misjudgments marked with a "?" but then you also get the "4-dan idea" marked with "??". On the flip side the players get a Thumbs Up when they set a good example.

Even though many of the players are mostly unknown, especially to the Western Go media, the author tries to tie in something special in every introduction. So you always get an interesting story even if the opponent was not that interesting.

The commentary often gives the Japanese word along with the English commentary. Presumably the word was used in the original commentary. You get your relatively standard terms like kiai, sabaki, tesuji, and kikashi. But then you also get less known words like kamae, nerai, choshi, and more.

I personally just like the style of these older games and so I'm having fun.

I still haven't dived into the Go Wisdom section but there is a lot to read there. I'm looking forward to it.

I am enjoying the "Go Wisdom" commentary style. By which I mean the reference letters on the board and the variations in the commentary given with respect to those. So of course this means that you lose variation diagrams, which are convenient, but I think this is for the best as far as study/practice.

One of the games from the beginning of the book. (The board is smaller than normal. The book is not huge)

CDavis7M · Post by **CDavis7M** » Wed Apr 06, 2022 11:33 am

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$ $$ --------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X O . . . . . O . X . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X O . . . . . , . . . . X , X . . | $$ | . . X O . . . . . O . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , O . . . . , . . . 9 . , O . . | $$ | . . . O . . . . . . . 0 . . a . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

In Game 10 versus Miyasaka Shinji (20, 21 Feb. 1930), Go Seigen decided against the low kakari (a) for B19 because he feared that Miyasaka would not pincer (as in the game) but would shoulder hit instead (at B19). As mentioned on page 77 of Archers of Yue, shoulder hit openings like the Tiger Lily openings were known in Chinese Go. I wondered what those were.

It turns out that 16 variations of the Tiger Lily opening are presented on pages 134-138 of Wizardry from the Stone Chamber. Of course these are all cross 4-4 openings for Chinese Go while these moves in Game 10 of Archers deal with a 3-4 opening. I'll give one variation here in case anyone else read this and was interested. I'm transposing the Tiger Lily position and changing black to white to match Go's game. This is just one variation. The defining characteristic of the Tiger Lily opening is of course the shoulder hit to the low kakari but also the subsequent push, hane, and cut. 6 can be a sagari, extension, or jump. There are many variations.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$ $$ -------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .-. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .-. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4 . . . . .-. . . . . . . . . . . 1 X O 4 . . . . | $$ | . . . X . . . . . . 9 . 2 3 . O . . .-. . . X . . . . . . X . O X . O . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . 8 0 6 1 . . . . .-. . . . . . . 0 7 5 O O O X . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3 . . . . .-. . . . . . . 9 8 6 . . X 3 2 . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .-. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$ $$ -------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . 5 4 6 X X O O . . . . | $$ | . . . X . . . . 3 2 X . O X . O . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . O X X O O O X . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . 1 X O O . 8 X X O . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

These Chinese openings all get very intense (for me) very quickly and I find them difficult to follow or understand. Of course, they were playing a slightly different game with cross-openings and stone scoring. Anyway, I an not sure how Go thought the shoulder hit + push and cut would have continued in his game. I checked with no komi KataGo but it was not helpful. My guess is that Go feared White could use the resulting fight to prevent Black from expanding on the right while also allowing White to expand on the bottom. Let me know if you have any thoughts. I have to say though, it seemed like the actual game moves allowed white to reduce Black potential on the right (blacks extension from the shimari at 39 was only 3 spaces) and White was still able to expand along the bottom using the pincer.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$ $$ --------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X O . . . . . O . X . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X O . . . . . , . . . . X , X . . | $$ | . . X O . . . . . O . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . 5 4 . . . . | $$ | . . . , O . . . . , . . . 2 3 , O . . | $$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Maybe this is all fluff but it was fun to read Go's comment, get a tip from the game comment, and find that I had the Tiger Lily variations.

------------------

By the way, the players thought that move 16 was slack and that pushing at a was better. A variation in the commentary is shown below -- Black would jump at the end to avoid White 'i' but that leaves White to extend along the top at 'k'. Of course, this might not have happened this way.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$ $$ --------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X O . . . . . O . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X O . . . . . , . . . . X , X . . | $$ | . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , O . . . . , . . . . . , O . . | $$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Since I referenced AI to see how the shoulder hit mentioned above might have worked out I looked at this also, given the discussion in the other thread about players self-commentary being inconsistent with AI judgment. It turns out that the AI (KataGo with no komi) likes the "slack" move 16 by a couple percentage points. So the AI judgment disagrees with the players. But guess what? If White played as the players said that White should, then White would be in a better position (according to both KataGo and the players) compared to KataGo's suggested variation from the game move. Of course that means that Black did not play like KataGo would. But Black was human.

So what does that tell me? KataGo might have better judgment to follow for an AI player, but Miyasaka and Go have better judgment to follow for human players.

Also, AI often doesn't like to continue with local variations. Probably better judgment but not fun or helpful. Seems like Pro commentary still has a place for some.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$W $$ --------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X O . . . . . O . . k . . . . . . | $$ | . . X O . . . . . , . . . . X , X . . | $$ | . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . 6 2 3 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . 5 4 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . i . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . X . 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , O . . . . , . . . . . , O . . | $$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Life In 19x19

New Go Seigen book - Archers of Yue

New Go Seigen book - Archers of Yue

Re: New Go Seigen book - Archers of Yue

Re: New Go Seigen book - Archers of Yue

Re: New Go Seigen book - Archers of Yue

Re: New Go Seigen book - Archers of Yue

Re: New Go Seigen book - Archers of Yue