Life In 19x19

I'm a beginner and if I have to buy ONLY 1 book, what would you recommend me?
The lack of money is why i did this post.

If I had limited resources as a beginner, I'd focus on using all the free resources I have available first such as reading all the pages of Sensei's Library. Then when you have an understanding of the fundamental ideas of go, perhaps buy "Invincible" which is a good collection of commented games of Honinbo Shusaku.

The only book I had for sometime at beginner level was "How to play Go", by Charles Matthews, and I'd happily recommend it.

If you had money for only zero book, I would suggest these two pdf files :
http://holosys.co.uk/usagi/

Actually, even if you were rich, I'd still recommand them.

TimeZero wrote:I'm a beginner and if I have to buy ONLY 1 book, what would you recommend me?
The lack of money is why i did this post.

If you can find your way here, then you do not need books for true beginners; there are free resources online to help you get to 15k. Really, you could just play lots of games and get to 15k.

You will get a lot of mileage out of Tesuji and Life & Death (from the Elementary Go Series). But... there are lots of free Go problems out there.

Invincible is a classic because of the great commentary and large collection of games. But perhaps more importantly, every time I read it I want to play more Go. This has been true since I first read the book as a ~4k. Even though the fuseki is outdated and the games are all ancient I cannot think of another Go book that gives me the same inspiration.

For mileage, comprehensiveness, sampling of problems and theory, and pure motivational grit, I would choose Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go.

It's a book that could last you from 20k to 1 dan, but it won't take you there on its own. No book will.

cdybeijing wrote:For mileage, comprehensiveness, sampling of problems and theory, and pure motivational grit, I would choose Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go...

I second this.

I have heard 'The Second Book of Go' described as the best book for beginners, though I did not find it until I was past its target audience, so I never read it.

Also, you may consider a problem book, such as Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Volume 2. It is worth noting, however, that free options like goproblems.com are an option on this front.

For a beginner, I'd recommend Go, A Complete Introduction to the Game.

http://www.kiseido.com/K50.htm

I would recommend either 1001 Life and Death Problems, or one of the Graded Go Problems for Beginners series, depending on your level. The shortest path to improvement is paved with tsumego, and if you carry 1001 L&D around with you and do 10 problems a day, I think in a few months you'll notice a big difference in your go.

Before I saw that the question was for a beginner, I thought about what would be the best book for any go player, if they could have but one. To my surprise, I came up with the Joseki Encyclopedia ( 囲碁大辞典 ) by Suzuki. (Yeah, I know, it's out of print.)

Even though the saying is "Learn joseki, lose two stones," joseki really does have almost everything: tesuji, life and death, judgement of influence vs. territory, professional play.

Thanks everyone for all your input! Before making this post, I had already ordered "Invicible" because I kinda know who is Shusaku when I read Hikaru no Go, but I wanted some advices to get another book soon.

Continue to give suggestions because i'm almost certain this thread will help another beginner for sure!

I opened this thread shouting the title of my favorite book of all time, namely "Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go" by Kageyama Toshirô, which you can read at any level and gain something from it every time, as well as enjoying it simply for its prose: Kageyama is one of the funniest writers I've come across in recent years. I'm happy to see I'm not alone in my adoration.

Concerning "Invincible", I have mixed feelings. The introduction is a treasure trove of information on historical Japanese go and the castle games in particular. I've read it many times, more for the story then anything else. Studying Shûsaku's games, however, is probably not the best way to go if you're a beginner. I feel kind of bad for pointing out my opinion on this after you've already ordered the book, but this thread exists because you asked, so there you go. But a second book will follow the first (and watch out for the DDK trap of buying every go book out there and not reading them).

My top three would be, in this order:
1) Kageyama, Toshirô: “Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go"
2) Davies, James: “Life and Death”
3) Davies, James: “Tesuji”

Because of the limitless re-readability of these books and the wonderful knowledge you will gain from working through their pages.

Hope this helps
Hushfield

Well, I received Invicible today and i started to read up to the 1st game, and I recreated the game on my Go board, and i can see somethings i wouldn't have imagined. Like the opening, even though it's an old opening, it's still useful to know the positioning. In some situations i would have made bad moves. I still learned something.

It's not the first thread where i see people talking about “Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go", so maybe i'll give it a shot at that one, but i'll check the other books people suggested too.

Thanks again everyone!

Actually if you only had money to buy one and only 1 book ever for studying go, I'd probably suggest that you buy the "Go World Archive" from Kiseido. With over 100 issues of this magazine, you'd have lots of commentaries and instructions that will last you for a long long time of studying.