I'm wondering if anyone has some sample content of John Fairbairn's new publication of the Shikatsu Myoki? I'm particularly curious about how he edited and organized the material. Some time ago I considered working on an English version of this book, but there were already good versions in the Asian languages. Thus, to avoid stepping on copyright issues by just publishing the same solutions in the same organization I would have had to artificially change a few diagrams, artificially mix it up, and throw in a few words to make it appear different enough. But that felt insincere and inappropriate. The other direction would have been to ask permission from the original author(s)/publisher(s) to basically reprint it in English (providing them royalties and so on). So I'm wondering how he did it. Usually he has some sources or notes about the texts he used. Thank-you.
http://gobooks.com/books.html
https://www.usgo.org/news/2014/04/new-offerings-from-smartgo-books-plus-add-your-own-notes/
New Publication of Shikatsu Myoki, Sample Pages?
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ez4u
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Re: New Publication of Shikatsu Myoki, Sample Pages?
JF translated the original 1910 edition.
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
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"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
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Re: New Publication of Shikatsu Myoki, Sample Pages?
Here are the first two problems from the book. 
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
Visualize whirled peas.
Everything with love. Stay safe.
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
Visualize whirled peas.
Everything with love. Stay safe.
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logan
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Re: New Publication of Shikatsu Myoki, Sample Pages?
Thanks Bill. If you have the time, could you please post problem 80? It should look like this:
A large number of the problems in the original collection have their solutions cut short from limited spacing. So the full solutions and failures would have had to come from somewhere else. The problem 80 solution is incorrect in at least some Asian versions (I don't have them all).
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Bill Spight
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Re: New Publication of Shikatsu Myoki, Sample Pages?
Problem 80.
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
Visualize whirled peas.
Everything with love. Stay safe.
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
Visualize whirled peas.
Everything with love. Stay safe.
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logan
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Re: New Publication of Shikatsu Myoki, Sample Pages?
Thank-you for your time Bill, I appreciate it.
Problem 80 is incorrect, it should be a ko (see following). IIRC it was the only problem in the Living section of the book that was a ko, so may have been better placed in the Ko section.
From the book examples here, the book appears to be a modified translation, because I don't recall there being failure diagrams in the original. For example, here is a scan of problem one (and two) from a later printing of the original at the Japanese National Diet Library:
So just a fair warning for those wanting to seriously study the collection with this version: there will be some wrong or incomplete solutions. Also, the organization may not be optimal.
Problem 80 is incorrect, it should be a ko (see following). IIRC it was the only problem in the Living section of the book that was a ko, so may have been better placed in the Ko section.
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Re: New Publication of Shikatsu Myoki, Sample Pages?
Am I the only one to find this thread extraordinarily snide? Lots of innuendo, wrong assumptions, errors...
First, the book description and introduction make it plain that the book is an edited translation - and why it was presented the way it was. Buy it to find out the background.
Second, as it's a translation, I follow the original layout anyway.
Third, failure lines are introduced only four or five times as part of the editing process, and are marked as not being part of Shusai's version.
Fourth, there is no Living section or Ko section in the original.
Fifth, the examples given here by Bill are not from the SmartGo book.
Sixth, logan ignores the standard tsumego convention that game-deciding kos (and approach kos) are usually classed as won by the player who gets to capture the ko. (Just as ladders are always assumed to work.) I discuss this also in GTAM.
Seventh, there is a major error in the blue marks in the Show portion above. The portion marked B/W to play actually says "White to play and live". The point is that Black would not risk losing everything for a ko he can't win, but would let White live and would take life himself in the corner. Shusai's wording implies that.
Eighth, where is the evidence that there are shortcomings in Shusai's other solutions?
Ninth, since "optimal organisation" is mentioned (and I don't accept that grouping by Ko or Life etc is necessarily optimal), it should be mentioned that the present SmartGo version has the merit of being partly interactive, and you might say you can't get much more optimal than that at present.
...
And twenty-ninthly,
First, the book description and introduction make it plain that the book is an edited translation - and why it was presented the way it was. Buy it to find out the background.
Second, as it's a translation, I follow the original layout anyway.
Third, failure lines are introduced only four or five times as part of the editing process, and are marked as not being part of Shusai's version.
Fourth, there is no Living section or Ko section in the original.
Fifth, the examples given here by Bill are not from the SmartGo book.
Sixth, logan ignores the standard tsumego convention that game-deciding kos (and approach kos) are usually classed as won by the player who gets to capture the ko. (Just as ladders are always assumed to work.) I discuss this also in GTAM.
Seventh, there is a major error in the blue marks in the Show portion above. The portion marked B/W to play actually says "White to play and live". The point is that Black would not risk losing everything for a ko he can't win, but would let White live and would take life himself in the corner. Shusai's wording implies that.
Eighth, where is the evidence that there are shortcomings in Shusai's other solutions?
Ninth, since "optimal organisation" is mentioned (and I don't accept that grouping by Ko or Life etc is necessarily optimal), it should be mentioned that the present SmartGo version has the merit of being partly interactive, and you might say you can't get much more optimal than that at present.
...
And twenty-ninthly,
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Re: New Publication of Shikatsu Myoki, Sample Pages?
logan wrote:Thank-you for your time Bill, I appreciate it.
Problem 80 is incorrect, it should be a ko (see following). IIRC it was the only problem in the Living section of the book that was a ko, so may have been better placed in the Ko section.From the book examples here, the book appears to be a modified translation,
Sorry for any misunderstanding. By "the book" I meant the original. I do not have the e-book.
I am the one who translated myou as exquisite.because I don't recall there being failure diagrams in the original.
For example, here is a scan of problem one (and two) from a later printing of the original at the Japanese National Diet Library:
You will note that that page says for each problem that there is a variation on the next page. Those are the variations that I included in the SGF files.
Edit: Besides, now that I check, they are not failure diagrams.
So just a fair warning for those wanting to seriously study the collection with this version: there will be some wrong or incomplete solutions. Also, the organization may not be optimal.
To be clear, if you have any objection, aside from the translation of myou, with what I posted, take it up with Shusai.
Last edited by Bill Spight on Tue Apr 22, 2014 10:30 am, edited 2 times in total.
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
Visualize whirled peas.
Everything with love. Stay safe.
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
Visualize whirled peas.
Everything with love. Stay safe.
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Bill Spight
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Re: New Publication of Shikatsu Myoki, Sample Pages?
John Fairbairn wrote:Fifth, the examples given here by Bill are not from the SmartGo book.
John, I am sorry for any confusion about that.
Sixth, logan ignores the standard tsumego convention that game-deciding kos (and approach kos) are usually classed as won by the player who gets to capture the ko. (Just as ladders are always assumed to work.) I discuss this also in GTAM.
Seventh, there is a major error in the blue marks in the Show portion above. The portion marked B/W to play actually says "White to play and live". The point is that Black would not risk losing everything for a ko he can't win, but would let White live and would take life himself in the corner. Shusai's wording implies that.
Right. While it is conceivable that, in a real game, Black would have enough sufficiently large ko threats to opt for the approach ko, the tsumego convention is that the board is otherwise empty. This follows the general principle, not just in tsumego, that everything that is relevant is shown.
Edit: I worked on the position a bit, and, as far as I can tell, even if Black can win the approach ko, he will normally do better to opt for live-live.
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
Visualize whirled peas.
Everything with love. Stay safe.
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
Visualize whirled peas.
Everything with love. Stay safe.
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logan
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Re: New Publication of Shikatsu Myoki, Sample Pages?
No problem Bill, thanks for clearing that up. Although I am a bit confused why you posted it thenBill Spight wrote:Sorry for any misunderstanding. By "the book" I meant the original. I do not have the e-book.
You will note that that page says for each problem that there is a variation on the next page. Those are the variations that I included in the SGF files.
Edit: Besides, now that I check, they are not failure diagrams.
But, whatever 
Only some of the problems have variations. (I would actually classify them as sub-problems.) But John said that he added failure diagrams, so it's all the same.
John Fairbairn wrote:Am I the only one to find this thread extraordinarily snide? Lots of innuendo, wrong assumptions, errors...
Yes, John you might be. I'm sorry you interpreted the posts so negatively.
Actually, I was expecting this sort of post soon enough. You become very emotional and aggressively riposte whenever anything critical is said about your books. You then start attributing the most negative emotions and intent to any such post you're replying too. This tends to 'scare' a lot of people off from making any critical questions or comments about your work. But truthfully, I don't care.
Unlike you, I'm not going to nitpick your post. I hope you can guess why.
The fact remains: you chose to publish this book in the manner that you wanted -- and that's great! I'm very happy for you. But also, because of that there will be inherent advantages and disadvantages. Again, there's nothing wrong with that. There's simply a better version of this book waiting to be published. I stand by the concluding sentence I wrote in my previous post; and I think that the few people who are interesed in serious study of these problems -- because it is a high-level collection -- will enjoy the more thorough and numerous variations and re-organized take in some of the Asian editions.
P.S. It's also silly to expect anyone to buy a book just to browse the introduction/references.
This is a huge can of worms and another issue. I won't get into this common argument. But with regards to Shusai's book there are a few things to mull over:Bill Spight wrote:Right. While it is conceivable that, in a real game, Black would have enough sufficiently large ko threats to opt for the approach ko, the tsumego convention is that the board is otherwise empty. This follows the general principle, not just in tsumego, that everything that is relevant is shown.John Fairbairn wrote:Sixth, logan ignores the standard tsumego convention that game-deciding kos (and approach kos) are usually classed as won by the player who gets to capture the ko. (Just as ladders are always assumed to work.) I discuss this also in GTAM.
Seventh, there is a major error in the blue marks in the Show portion above. The portion marked B/W to play actually says "White to play and live". The point is that Black would not risk losing everything for a ko he can't win, but would let White live and would take life himself in the corner. Shusai's wording implies that.
Edit: I worked on the position a bit, and, as far as I can tell, even if Black can win the approach ko, he will normally do better to opt for live-live.
1. Shusai pulls no punches when giving Black's maximum resistance in other problems. He uses the final solutions as the basis for titling the problem as "Black to play," "White to play for ko," "Black to play for ko to live," etc. But in this problem he ignores this for the so-called, "game-deciding ko" convention.
2. Most kos in the book are game-deciding. There's no choice but to ignore any ko threat and take them. Shusai doesn't avoid the strongest resistance in these problems.
3. Shusai doesn't retitle or give the mainline variation as how Black or White should play in a real game.
4. One player is clearly winning before most of these problems even begin.
5. Problem 103 is a particularly interesting case of a game-deciding ko where Black captures the ko first and White cannot win the ko, yet it's titled, "Black to play for ko."
I used to think this. But after looking through so many endgame books, I now don't believe this any longer. (If you don't put who's ahead on ko threats in an endgame problem, then there's going to be a lot of problems.)Bill Spight wrote:This follows the general principle, not just in tsumego, that everything that is relevant is shown.
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Re: New Publication of Shikatsu Myoki, Sample Pages?
logan wrote:Bill Spight wrote:Sorry for any misunderstanding. By "the book" I meant the original. I do not have the e-book.
No problem Bill, thanks for clearing that up. Although I am a bit confused why you posted it then
Well, you asked.
Besides, I would think that a prospective buyer of the book might want to get an idea of the type and difficulty of the problems.True, you were particularly interested in John's editing. But I would have been greatly surprised had he altered the actual problems and answers, unless mistakes had been discovered, which I doubted for the problems I showed.
logan wrote:Bill Spight wrote:John Fairbairn wrote:Sixth, logan ignores the standard tsumego convention that game-deciding kos (and approach kos) are usually classed as won by the player who gets to capture the ko. (Just as ladders are always assumed to work.) I discuss this also in GTAM.
Seventh, there is a major error in the blue marks in the Show portion above. The portion marked B/W to play actually says "White to play and live". The point is that Black would not risk losing everything for a ko he can't win, but would let White live and would take life himself in the corner. Shusai's wording implies that.
Right. While it is conceivable that, in a real game, Black would have enough sufficiently large ko threats to opt for the approach ko, the tsumego convention is that the board is otherwise empty. This follows the general principle, not just in tsumego, that everything that is relevant is shown.
Edit: I worked on the position a bit, and, as far as I can tell, even if Black can win the approach ko, he will normally do better to opt for live-live.
This is a huge can of worms and another issue. I won't get into this common argument. But with regards to Shusai's book there are a few things to mull over:
1. Shusai pulls no punches when giving Black's maximum resistance in other problems. He uses the final solutions as the basis for titling the problem as "Black to play," "White to play for ko," "Black to play for ko to live," etc. But in this problem he ignores this for the so-called, "game-deciding ko" convention.
2. Most kos in the book are game-deciding. There's no choice but to ignore any ko threat and take them. Shusai doesn't avoid the strongest resistance in these problems.
3. Shusai doesn't retitle or give the mainline variation as how Black or White should play in a real game.
4. One player is clearly winning before most of these problems even begin.
5. Problem 103 is a particularly interesting case of a game-deciding ko where Black captures the ko first and White cannot win the ko, yet it's titled, "Black to play for ko."Bill Spight wrote:This follows the general principle, not just in tsumego, that everything that is relevant is shown.
I used to think this. But after looking through so many endgame books, I now don't believe this any longer. (If you don't put who's ahead on ko threats in an endgame problem, then there's going to be a lot of problems.)
The conventions of modern tsumego do not seem to be the same as for older problems. In particular, the division into unconditional life, unconditional death, and ko, seems to be modern. For problem 80 Shusai simply says, White first life. Unconditional life it is not, but it is life for all practical purposes. Also, the approach ko is hardly something that one would expect Shusai to have overlooked, or his rivals at the time, or his students. I do not know how much we can infer from the fact that he stops after
, but if he had continued with the Black atari at O-19, we would have a stronger case that he had ignored the Black atari at R-19. Here is problem 6, where Shusai says, White first ko death. The ko fight and local ko threats are integral to the problem. IMX, I have not seen this kind of tsumego in recently composed books. But it still accords with the principle of showing everything that is relevant.
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
Visualize whirled peas.
Everything with love. Stay safe.
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
Visualize whirled peas.
Everything with love. Stay safe.
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Re: New Publication of Shikatsu Myoki, Sample Pages?
John Fairbairn wrote:Am I the only one to find this thread extraordinarily snide?
Not sure if this was a rhetorical question but no I don't find it snide since it seems perfectly natural to compare your book with others versions that are available and Logan's criticisms are clearly stated.
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Re: New Publication of Shikatsu Myoki, Sample Pages?
Well i agree with John. It came across as kind of snide to me, followed by a helping of arrogance.
If Logan feels the need to criticize the book, he can at least read it first. I think such comments as
are audacious to say the least.
I think Paying $10 first, and then reading the book and then coming back with your views would be best. (or don't give your views.)
If you feel you wont learn anything from the book then that is all well and good, however judging someones work without due diligence is a bit rich.
Reviews from sample pages are hardly worth a dime.
Meanwhile John continues to contribute valuable content for the community.
While comments like
I think anyone would take it personally when someone is pulling apart something they poured endless hours into when they haven't even read it.
I might not win friends with my position on this and frankly i dont care. I will say i do think John deserves respect for his work. Now whether there has been previous bad blood or grievances held by anyone here personally i dont know but i dont think that is for us to go into publicly. I am sure any of the questions you had could have been addressed by John directly.
If Logan feels the need to criticize the book, he can at least read it first. I think such comments as
There's simply a better version of this book waiting to be published.
are audacious to say the least.
I think Paying $10 first, and then reading the book and then coming back with your views would be best. (or don't give your views.)
If you feel you wont learn anything from the book then that is all well and good, however judging someones work without due diligence is a bit rich.
Reviews from sample pages are hardly worth a dime.
Meanwhile John continues to contribute valuable content for the community.
While comments like
You become very emotional and aggressively riposte whenever anything critical is said about your books.
I think anyone would take it personally when someone is pulling apart something they poured endless hours into when they haven't even read it.
I might not win friends with my position on this and frankly i dont care. I will say i do think John deserves respect for his work. Now whether there has been previous bad blood or grievances held by anyone here personally i dont know but i dont think that is for us to go into publicly. I am sure any of the questions you had could have been addressed by John directly.
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Re: New Publication of Shikatsu Myoki, Sample Pages?
I was wary of chiming in, but, well, whatever. Not everyone can afford (or is just willing to get) an iPad or other iOS device. Since John's Shikatsu Myoki is only available in SmartGo Books for iOS, this can easily make it out of question. Hence (probably why) logan asked for other's opinions. I could have easily purchased SM, but it's very outside my reading abilities.
And even though I don't want to open Pandora's box, John can actually be "somewhat" emotional when someone criticises his work. Happens to everyone, I'd feel (and have felt with my own work) the same way, it may be a bad thing but we all share the trait. And I say this having 4 or 5 of John's books in Kindle and SmartGo formats (I purchased SmartGo's Shuei collection even if I had already purchased 2 of the volumes as Kindle volumes.) so it's not like I have something against him or his books.
And even though I don't want to open Pandora's box, John can actually be "somewhat" emotional when someone criticises his work. Happens to everyone, I'd feel (and have felt with my own work) the same way, it may be a bad thing but we all share the trait. And I say this having 4 or 5 of John's books in Kindle and SmartGo formats (I purchased SmartGo's Shuei collection even if I had already purchased 2 of the volumes as Kindle volumes.) so it's not like I have something against him or his books.
Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net
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Re: New Publication of Shikatsu Myoki, Sample Pages?
I may not be able to afford space flight, but i am not about to start critiquing Virgin Galactic's service in any way. Nor would i hold a grudge towards Virgin for not catering to the confines of what i can afford within my lifestyle.
My point being that this isn't a question of affordability or availability, so lets not try to justify the criticism by diverting from the topic at hand.
Logan was not asking for opinions and if you look at the first post i think you would find that it would be a very good candidate for a direct personal message to John himself.
I just don't think it is right to critique and judge the books organization or content until he has read the book.
My point being that this isn't a question of affordability or availability, so lets not try to justify the criticism by diverting from the topic at hand.
Logan was not asking for opinions and if you look at the first post i think you would find that it would be a very good candidate for a direct personal message to John himself.
Hi John, I'm wondering ifanyone hasyou have some sample content ofJohn Fairbairn'syour new publication of the Shikatsu Myoki? I'm particularly curious about howheyou edited and organized the material. Some time ago I considered working on an English version of this book, but there were already good versions in the Asian languages. Thus, to avoid stepping on copyright issues by just publishing the same solutions in the same organization I would have had to artificially change a few diagrams, artificially mix it up, and throw in a few words to make it appear different enough. But that felt insincere and inappropriate. The other direction would have been to ask permission from the original author(s)/publisher(s) to basically reprint it in English (providing them royalties and so on). So I'm wondering howheyou did it. Usuallyhe hasyou have some sources or notes about the textsheyou used. Thank-you.
I just don't think it is right to critique and judge the books organization or content until he has read the book.