R.I.P. Richard Bozulich

[Bonobo]

Rest In Peace, Richard Bozulich!

Today, a sad news arrived: Richard Bozulich passed away on March 09, 2026.

Just an hour ago, his grand-daughter posted the following in the largest English-speaking Go group on Facebook:

image.png (2.21 MiB) Viewed 4554 times

Richard’s name is well-known in the anglophone Go community as he has written many books about Go, and the “K” in “KGS” comes from his “Kiseido Publishing Company”.

My condolence and sympathy go out to all his family and friends!

https://senseis.xmp.net/?RichardBozulich
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bozulich

https://www.kiseidopublishing.com/
https://www.kiseidodigital.com
https://goworld-online.com/

[Javaness2]

That is sad news, his work on publishing was immensely valuable to the community. I wonder if we will ever find out who instigated the premature reporting of his death.

[ez4u]

Sad news indeed. I only met Richard once. The first time that I visited the Nihon Kiin main building (c. late 1979 or early 1980), I was peacefully browsing the bookstore when I was set upon by a crazy foreigner, absolutely full of energy, who walked up and started shaking my hand. He claimed that he was Richard Bozulich, publisher of the very book that I was looking at. He insisted on dragging me upstairs to meet John Power, who was working for the Nihon Kiin at the time. I was so shaken by the incident that I was constantly looking over my shoulder the next few times that I visited.

Sad to say, we never crossed paths again. My condolences to his family. He had a profound effect on the Go playing community through his writing and publishing in a career that stretched across more than fifty years. His books were what originally introduced me to Go and fueled my passion across the years. Well played Richard!

[Shenoute]

I never met Richard Bozulich but he nevertheless had a great influence on my go career.

The first club I attended, back in 2002, had a rather well furnished library. As an eager beginner, I was tasked with becoming the club librarian (it could be that I asked ). As a result I had all those wonderful books and magazines at home, to peruse at my leisure. I think a good half, or maybe 2/3 even, of the library were Ishi Press/Kiseido books and Go World issues.

The stronger player I could play with at the time was 3k. A couple of 1d players were around but they rarely attended club sessions and I (almost) never got to play with them. Books, and Ishi/Kiseido ones especially, thus played a large part in my go education.

Thank you, Mr. Bozulich!