Go Basics: Concepts and Strategies for New Players

[Peter Shotwell]

One reader wrote “. . . have you seen these reviews? http://senseis.xmp.net/?GoBasicsConcept ... NewPlayers”

In response to these comments in Sensei’s Library on my book, the problem with critical reviews by beginners is that they often misinterpret things that they do not understand.

A completed game is demonstrated in the introduction of “Go Basics” and there are only two substantial rules in go that need to be known. The first, the rule of capture, is clearly explained in Chapter One and the second—that no position can be repeated (ko)—is explained later on, when the reader is able to fully understand it. The rest of the book deals not with rules but with go knowledge that is essential for a player’s improvement for playing on any size board.

I am a bit suspicious of the second review since, from what I have been able to determine, he wrote it after playing go for about a month. In the one concrete example he cites, he missed that the explanatory text starts out not once, but twice with the word “If.” Nor did he seem to know that commentaries on variations from the game always start out with 1 in order not to confuse the reader about what really happened. Then the diagrams and text go back to the actual game. All this is on page 109.

Following this logic, I suspect that the “four times” players got “two moves” were demonstrations that a group was dead and one side did not have to reply to any moves that were made by the other side to save them. Also, if he reads this, could he please be explicit about where the marked stones-text “problems” are? No one else has complained about any of this in the four years it has been out. However, maybe there are some mistakes—a go book is rarely written without a few and we writers would always like know about them in order to correct them in later editions! This was done, for example, in the second printing of my first book, “Go! More Than a Game,” where a mistake in the first printing about the final score of a game was a left-over from a deleted game that slipped by me and quite a few editors.

Peter Shotwell
pshotwell at gmail

[xed_over]

I suspect that the “four times” players got “two moves” were demonstrations that a group was dead and one side did not have to reply to any moves that were made by the other side to save them.

I still remember being confused about these types of diagrams in other books when I was a beginner, but I thought your text in this book described these "extra moves" diagrams fairly well.

But then again, it could be that I better understand what I'm reading now

One reader wrote “. . . have you seen these reviews? http://senseis.xmp.net/?GoBasicsConcept

Yeah, I posted the link without reading the actual reviews first. Had I realized that they were only negative reviews, I might not have posted it.

That's why I've picked the book up off my shelf and am reading it on my daily commute this week.

I like what I'm reading so far. It seems a good, and easy to understand introduction for beginners.

[LocoRon]

I suspect that the “four times” players got “two moves” were demonstrations that a group was dead and one side did not have to reply to any moves that were made by the other side to save them.

I still remember being confused about these types of diagrams in other books when I was a beginner, but I thought your text in this book described these "extra moves" diagrams fairly well.

But then again, it could be that I better understand what I'm reading now

Hmm... Seems like some people might need some extra help when they're starting out. So, who wants to write the book about how to read books?