Life In 19x19

Introduction

The Basic Principles of the Opening and the Middle Game, by Rob can Zeijst and Richard Bozulich, is the second volume to Kiseido’s new series: The Road Map to Shodan. Though the title might lead some astray, this book is not intended to be a definitive guide to all principles in regards to the opening and middle game. Instead, it would be more accurate to view the purpose of this book as a broad survey of common principles that beginner and intermediate players forget during their own games. And while some might write this book off as a simple marketing ploy, this book is truly a fantastic collection of principles that cover a wide range of material in an easy to understand manner.

Summary of Content

When first presented with the title, I must admit that I was initially skeptical of what it could contain. After all, I had already read 20 Principles of the Opening, Get Strong at the Opening, 501 Opening Problems, etc. To my delight, the content of the book exceeded my expectations. Just look at the topics covered: (1) Extensions and Efficiency, (2) Confinement, Linkage, and Separation, (3) Weak Stones and Weak Positions, (4) Handling Moyos & Escaping, (5) Handling Thickness, (6) The Third and Fourth Lines in the Opening, (7) Defending Against a 3-3 Invasion, (8) Turning a Moyo into Territory, and (9) How to Make Sabaki.

While the topics do not receive a comprehensive explanation of each topic, the book does a great job providing a survey of the topic with the key points highlighted. After all, don’t forget that this series is meant to be a guide for those who are kyu players looking to gain strength. So the most effective method for helping players do that is to provide the most common mistakes that players make and how to fix them. More advanced techniques and principles would naturally be reserved for other books.

Unlike most of the other books I have read, this book does an excellent job of keeping things as simple as possible. For example, instead of inundating the reader with numerous of examples taken from professional games, the examples consist of straight-forward examples that are easy to follow. In addition, each principle is given a good mixture of examples and explanation. As a result, novice and/or more casual players would not be overwhelmed and can digest the material much more easily.

Intended Audience

The strength of players who would benefit most from this book would be around 10k and stronger.

While there are other books out there that contain similar information in various forms, this book is best suited for players who approach the study of go with a more casual approach.

In other words, the material is written in such a way that it is quite easy to get through and absorb without multiple intense readings. That’s not to say that you can read it once and be done with it, but it is not so dense that you would have to reread a paragraph multiple times just to understand its basic meaning (let alone trying to apply it in your own games). In addition, the diagrams are short enough that it is not necessary to have a board in order to comprehend the flow of the stones (though it is certainly recommended if you have it in front of you).

Layout

The content is laid out in a way that is analogous to a textbook. First you have a section explaining the principles that you should learn along with a few examples to illustrate their point. The explanations are then followed up with a few problems for you to reinforce what you have just learned. And to ensure that you don’t accidentally glance at the solutions while trying to solve the problems, they are kept in a separate section after the problems are presented.

Analysis and Evaluation

The key to understanding the brilliance of this book lies in its accessibility to players of all kinds. Even when I consider players like myself who have read numerous books and take the game quite seriously, there is something to be appreciated about the simplicity to which this book approaches the topic. And though my understanding of this topic most likely has already encroached on dan territory, I still felt that the book provided a great reinforcement of things I knew and helped fill some areas that I didn’t realize were missing.

In terms of shortcomings, there is only one aspect that I would have liked to have seen: more practice problems. While there are a handful of problems to review each section, there was more than one occasion where I would have liked just a few more problems. To be clear though, this is not to say that the problems in the book do not cover the topics presented. It’s just I would have liked a few more than what is in the book.

Conclusion

While there will be players who may scoff at this book, Kiseido has done a great job of finally providing a stepping stone that beginner and intermediate players can actually benefit from. So if you have any interest in the topics mentioned above and think you could benefit from the style of teaching being used, then I highly recommend that you get a copy of this book pronto!

For the full review, go to the following link: http://www.bengozen.com/book-review-road-map-shodan-volume-2/.

bengozen wrote:is truly a fantastic collection of principles that cover a wide range of material

Why do you call the collection of principles fantastic? If it were fantastic, all its principles would be right and the best possible versions of such principles. Usually, they are not.

While the range of material is wide, it also is not wide enough to cover every relevant topic for the opening and middle game. E.g., there is no principle for the topic of reading.

the book does a great job providing a survey of the topic

No. It does not provide a survey of the topic, but a selection of very few principles for the topic. E.g., for some topics, the concept of sacrifice is missing.

the most effective method for helping players do that is to provide the most common mistakes that players make and how to fix them.

Fine, but you seem to be saying that the book provided the most common mistakes. It does not. They are missing. E.g., principles for the most common mistakes should include:

1) Verify by reading.
2) Pay attention to details.

I have studied frequencies of mistakes. Mistakes related to these two principles belong to the most frequent kinds. However, these principles and related topics are missing in the book.

this book does an excellent job of keeping things as simple as possible.

Not always; the principles in chapter 1 could be simpler.

There is a difference between keeping things as simple as possible and over-simplifying things so that they become wrong. The book simplifies so far that it over-simplifies. This may keep things simple on the naive surface of the book's contents, however, it does not simplify correct application for players, who are faced with over-simplified advice and need to discover this by themselves in order to overcome this. I.e., short-term learning is simple, but as soon as a player wants to improve more, his progress is made more difficult than necessary.

The key to understanding the brilliance of this book lies in its accessibility to players of all kinds.

How do you justify brilliance in view of missing major topics and principles, and over-simplification instead of simplification of principles with the consequence of quite a few of the principles becoming wrong?

Accessibility to players of all kinds, yes (because it is easy to access over-simplifying contents). Usefulness to players of all kinds, no. The book is less suitable for players wishing principles that are correct to a reasonable degree.

Let me give an example for a principle in the book. "Defend your weak stones." This principle is right only when the stones are important and should be defended at all. The principle is wrong when the stones are non-essential and should be sacrificed instead of defended. In practice, sacrifice frequently is a good idea. Therefore, the book's principle frequently is wrong. For a simplifying book, one can accept that "weak" is not explained in detail, however, in order to avoid over-simplification, the principle ought to be: "Defend your weak important stones." In fact, distinguishing important from non-essential stones would make a very good other basic principle, which is missing in the book.

In terms of shortcomings, there is only one aspect that I would have liked to have seen: more practice problems.

The book's shortcomings include:
- Missing very important basic principles.
- Too little correctness of quite a few of the principles.
- Too few alternative moves and variations.

Would you not want to see a better treatment of these aspects?

Why do you call the collection of principles fantastic? If it were fantastic, all its principles would be right and the best possible versions of such principles. Usually, they are not.

Principles are called principles for the sheer fact that they can be applied generally. I would be shocked if any person would argue that principles (i.e., proverbs) can be universally applied. Secondly, there is no such thing as the "best possible version of the principles." While there can always be improvements that can be made, information conveyed is at its best when it is learned and absorbed by the reader. And when it comes to learning, there are people of all different learning styles who acquire knowledge differently.

While the range of material is wide, it also is not wide enough to cover every relevant topic for the opening and middle game. E.g., there is no principle for the topic of reading.

If you notice in my review, I clearly state that this book is not meant to be a comprehensive book on the topic. And while I would agree that reading is an important aspect of the middle game, I don't think it is fair to judge the book on the basis that it does not have principles that you or I would personally have put in. Once again, I'll emphasize that this book is not a comprehensive encyclopedia on the topic, so naturally, things will naturally be left out.

No. It does not provide a survey of the topic, but a selection of very few principles for the topic. E.g., for some topics, the concept of sacrifice is missing.

To the first part of the statement, I refer you to my response above. To the second part of your statement, I would point out that even if the concept of sacrifice were not missing, I could then make the next criticism that the explanation of trying to determine what is strong and what is weak would be missing. And if we were to dive into that, then we would probably have to talk about how one evaluates the board and make strategic decisions appropriate to sacrifices. And let's face it, this topic is a concept that is grappled with well into the dan levels.

I have studied frequencies of mistakes. Mistakes related to these two principles (i.e., verify by reading and pay attention to details) belong to the most frequent kinds. However, these principles and related topics are missing in the book.

Perhaps you are correct in that statistically speaking, mistakes made due to reading and paying attention to details is the root cause for many kyu players mistakes. However, being able to read is a skill that is acquired through solving problems and mistakes. Paying attention to detail is a subjective measure that players have the freedom to exercise as they enjoy the game. And while they are important aspects to getting stronger, I personally feel that they are lessons that are usually learned through playing and experience (i.e., their group dies as a result of a misread) and would have been wasted space in this book.

You try to correct my statement in that the book does not cover the most common mistakes that kyu players make, but that statement is my personal opinion from what I have seen players incur in the field. You are of course free to disagree, but that is not a reflection on the book itself. If the book were titled "Most Common Mistakes Made in the Opening and the Middle Game," perhaps then your statement would be more valid.

There is a difference between keeping things as simple as possible and over-simplifying things so that they become wrong. The book simplifies so far that it over-simplifies.

Once again, I will refer to my first response and firmly disagree that principles could be classified as "wrong." It is clear that you believe that topics should be covered in the most comprehensive fashion, but that is not the correct approach for everyone. In fact, there would be numerous cases where that approach would be disastrous.

For example, in mathematics, we are taught early on that you cannot take the square root of a negative number. In fact, most people go through their whole lives believing this concept and do just fine. For those who eventually go on to take advanced mathematics, they learn of the concept of the "imaginary number." And while this is wonderful and opens the minds of brilliant mathematicians, it would be absolutely useless and boring to the average person.

So while some concepts may be "over-simplified," this is an important step for many players as they start out. Those players who are passionate and seek further understanding will naturally dive further and learn of the exceptions and advanced theories, but then it is only appropriate that they move on to other books more fitting of their level.

Accessibility to players of all kinds, yes (because it is easy to access over-simplifying contents). Usefulness to players of all kinds, no. The book is less suitable for players wishing principles that are correct to a reasonable degree.

I never said that it would be useful to players of all kinds. And while I understand that you have done your research and analysis of the game, I maintain the stance that your perspective on how to get stronger is simply that: a perspective. To argue that there is a "reasonable degree" of correctness is to state that there is an equation for evaluating everything in the game. The evolution of the fuseki to utilize star-points is a simple example of why trying to quantify principles as "correct" or "wrong" is flawed.

The book's shortcomings include:
- Missing very important basic principles.
- Too little correctness of quite a few of the principles.
- Too few alternative moves and variations.

As I've already addressed the first two points, I will omit responding to them again. However, the third criticism is a matter of taste and perspective. While it may be useful for a person of your learning style to have numerous variations and tons of alternate moves, I have found that this is generally more detrimental to weaker players who often suffer from decision paralysis. By keeping the alternative moves and variations to a minimum, there is a much greater chance that a player will actually try one of the moves during their games as opposed to just staring and having no idea where to start. I don't know how you played when you were a double digit kyu/lower single digit kyu, but I certainly did not consider five to ten variations for each move that I made.

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

There are many ways for people to reach shodan. Some are exceptionally strong at the opening, some are stronger in the middle game, and some are strong at the endgame. And just like how players of the same rank can be considered the same strength while excelling at different areas, the way in which every player gets there is different as well. Some need to simply play the game while others require heavy reading and even a teacher to guide them along the way.

So yes, while this book is more aptly titled "Basic Principles of the Opening and Middle Game" and the series more aptly titled "A Road Map to Shodan," it does not mean that the book (and ultimately the series) has no place in go literature and is "wrong." It is simply their philosophy on what they believe is important to becoming shodan.

And to be clear, nowhere in my review do I try to even insinuate that this book is the only book that players will ever need regarding the opening and the middle game. As I stated in the conclusion of my review, the book is a "stepping stone." It is not the holy grail of books on the opening and the middle game. It is simply a good "stepping stone" for players "who approach the study of go with a more casual approach."

There are many ways for how people to climb the ladder and gain strength. And just like how different medication has different effects depending on the patient, the same principle holds true for the teaching methodologies that provide guidance to every player that studies of this game we all love.

Calling a principle a principle does not make it generally applicable, but the contents of the principle must be chosen to allow it.

There are best versions of principles if they are truths. Otherwise they must approximate truths as well as possible. And this is not done by every principle in the book.

You say the book is not comprehensive, I say so, so you need not resort to a discussion about comprehensive when we have discussed how wide or not so wide the range of topics is. The point is: the book does have its limitations in variety of topics.

"Weak" is absolutely not well understood by many kyu players, because instability has been a much neglected topic in the literature until 2011 and this book provides no clear information on it. Therefore, many readers of this book will confuse "weak" with "unsettled life" and so miss something very important of the basic principles of go theory.

Reading is a skill that is not only acquired through solving problems and overcoming mistakes, but also by reading theory and go theory (such as expressed, e.g., in principles) guiding the pruning of reading.

With "paying attention to details" I do not mean a subjective measure that players have the freedom to exercise as they enjoy the game. I mean 1) consideration of local alternatives to find locally best moves and 2) other, not only local, details. This book, since it intends to be an introduction to basic principles, need not go into every detail. Rather it should motivate the reader to consider going into detail regularly at all.

Forgetting about the book title for the moment and considering only the book's concept for its contents, I do not suggest that this book should be as comprehensive as possible. I suggest that principles must not over-simplify so far that they are wrong so much that they make further progress beyond the small range of strengths from 9k to 5k unnecessarily difficult. (E.g. "Defend your weak groups" instead of "Defend your weak important groups." Players wishing to improve beyond 5k need to distinguish important from non-essential stones. Even an Ishi Press classic knew that. You speak of advanced mathematics and such, but I am convinced that even beginners can make this distinction; there is no need to hide it from the readers, but there is a very good reason to apply it.)

Yes, many things of go theory can be assessed. The mentioned principle is such a thing for the reasons explained.

While you defend your review, I do not see justifications for your exaggerations in it: "fantastic", "excellent", "brilliance". Points can be made in favour of the book's easy going approach, but these adjectives paint a very different story.

I'm trying to understand Robert's vehemence. Perhaps every euro spent on this book is a euro that won't get spent on his. Sad, really.

Thanks for the review, bengozen. I'll look for this book at the next Congress.

wineandgolover wrote:I'm trying to understand Robert's vehemence. Perhaps every euro spent on this book is a euro that won't get spent on his. Sad, really.

Or he thinks he doesn't hold opinions, but objective truths.

wineandgolover, there are different things concerning the book or bengozen I am having a particularly strong opinion about:

1) The title and series title.
2) The suboptimal quality of the principles.
3) bengozen's use of words of top level praise where they are inappropriate.

(1)

As a potential reader of a book, I want a book title to inform me honestly about the contents so that I can make an easier decision whether to read the book. A misleading title can mislead my decision making. I think that I am not the only person with a preference for honest instead of misleading titles.

As an author and publisher of books emphasising also teaching by principles, I perceive an outrageous title of a book by another publisher also as an unfair marketing means. I do not care about legal issues, but I use my right of speech to explain why such a title is improper. The other publisher uses his right of speech to exaggerate, and I point out this. The surprising thing is not that I do so but that apparently I have to defend doing so when you criticise me for it. Not the trickiest PR should win but a greater degree of accurate relation between book title and contents.

(2)

As a reader, I want to learn principles that help me very well to improve as a player. I do not want principles that I have to unlearn soon and replace by better principles. One of the greatest obstacles for my improvement has always been the hiding of better knowledge and the substituation by weaker knowledge in the literature, so that I needed to discover or rediscover the better knowledge by myself. When observing other players or pupils, consistently I see their same kinds of problems when they have learnt unnecessarily weak and in important respects incomplete knowledge. Therefore, I think that every reader deserves better, more frequently correctly applicable knowledge (such as in principles) and fewer important knowledge gaps. Thus you see my strong judgements in reviews when books do not provide what they could and should provide.

(3)

High praise reviews about books with apparent great shortcomings make it harder for readers of reviews to distinguish such books from other books having fewer or less severe shortcomings and discussed in other high praise reviews. The latter deserve high praise more than the former - not the same degree of praise.

Uberdude wrote:Or he thinks he doesn't hold opinions, but objective truths.

And thinks that this is an appropriate way to argue for and spread those objective truths...

But Uberdude is right, and you're being insulting, wineandgolover. From what I see, Robert has approached matters this way since long before he had a commercial interest.

Objective truths [in general]: 1) wrong, 2) off-topic.

RobertJasiek wrote:
While you defend your review, I do not see justifications for your exaggerations in it: "fantastic", "excellent", "brilliance". Points can be made in favour of the book's easy going approach, but these adjectives paint a very different story.

bengozen wrote: To my delight, the content of the book exceeded my expectations.

bengozen wrote: the book does a great job providing a survey of the topic with the key points highlighted.

bengozen wrote:Unlike most of the other books I have read, this book does an excellent job of keeping things as simple as possible.

bengozen wrote:In addition, each principle is given a good mixture of examples and explanation. As a result, novice and/or more casual players would not be overwhelmed and can digest the material much more easily.

bengozen wrote:The key to understanding the brilliance of this book lies in its accessibility to players of all kinds.

bengozen wrote:And though my understanding of this topic most likely has already encroached on dan territory, I still felt that the book provided a great reinforcement of things I knew and helped fill some areas that I didn’t realize were missing.

In his review, bengozen presents his opinion and tells us what he liked about the book. The fact that the book does not meet your criteria for excellence is irrelevant. If anyone would like to read another opinion of the book (yours) they can read it here: viewtopic.php?p=173924#p173924

A review is more than expression of a personal, subjective opinion. A review also conveys information for its readers. In order to allow them to make a profound decision, the information should be justified by facts about the book in a context available for evaluation by the readers of the review of the facts and their judgement by the reviewer. Furthermore, every two reviews (on possibly different books, by the same or different reviewers) should allow for being comparable. Such is difficult if statements in a review are solely opinion unrelated to a context frame in which relative, qualitative statements can be compared at all. Otherwise, a review would be only self-contained and allowed too little evaluation in a broader context.

@Robert: Much of what you write in this thread exemplifies the overexplicification that so plagues your writing. Given the glowing review that this book gets here, you could perhaps learn much from it about how to write attractive, engaging content.

RobertJasiek wrote:the information should be justified by facts about the book in a context available for evaluation by the readers of the review of the facts and their judgement by the reviewer.

This is your opinion. I don't share it.

Furthermore, every two reviews (on possibly different books, by the same or different reviewers) should allow for being comparable.

See first comment.

Robert, thank you for replying in good faith to what was a pretty snarky comment. I may not agree with what you write or how you write it, but I apologize for implying you had a hidden motive. Truthfully, one should rarely guess at another's motives in on-line discourse, a lesson I need to relearn from time to time.

-Brady

RobertJasiek wrote:wineandgolover, there are different things concerning the book or bengozen I am having a particularly strong opinion about:

1) The title and series title.
2) The suboptimal quality of the principles.
3) bengozen's use of words of top level praise where they are inappropriate.

(1)

As a potential reader of a book, I want a book title to inform me honestly about the contents so that I can make an easier decision whether to read the book. A misleading title can mislead my decision making. I think that I am not the only person with a preference for honest instead of misleading titles.

As an author and publisher of books emphasising also teaching by principles, I perceive an outrageous title of a book by another publisher also as an unfair marketing means. I do not care about legal issues, but I use my right of speech to explain why such a title is improper. The other publisher uses his right of speech to exaggerate, and I point out this. The surprising thing is not that I do so but that apparently I have to defend doing so when you criticise me for it. Not the trickiest PR should win but a greater degree of accurate relation between book title and contents.

(2)

As a reader, I want to learn principles that help me very well to improve as a player. I do not want principles that I have to unlearn soon and replace by better principles. One of the greatest obstacles for my improvement has always been the hiding of better knowledge and the substituation by weaker knowledge in the literature, so that I needed to discover or rediscover the better knowledge by myself. When observing other players or pupils, consistently I see their same kinds of problems when they have learnt unnecessarily weak and in important respects incomplete knowledge. Therefore, I think that every reader deserves better, more frequently correctly applicable knowledge (such as in principles) and fewer important knowledge gaps. Thus you see my strong judgements in reviews when books do not provide what they could and should provide.

(3)

High praise reviews about books with apparent great shortcomings make it harder for readers of reviews to distinguish such books from other books having fewer or less severe shortcomings and discussed in other high praise reviews. The latter deserve high praise more than the former - not the same degree of praise.

Herman, it is very easy to write such a book, and I could do it in less than a week. However, my aim is not to enjoy only readers wishing only short-term improvement, but my aim is to enable readers to improve well both in the short- and long-term. Knowledge learnt as a 10k must still be very useful as a strong kyu, low dan and high dan.

Such is possible also by means of easy-to-read books in this book's writing style (except that I would avoid dull text of the "move 3 here, then move 4 there, then that move 5" type). However, it is not done well with weak, partially wrong principles. It must be done with strong, mostly right principles. For the easy-to-read reader's joy, there is no noteworthy difference between "Defend your weak stones" and "Defend your weak important stones", but for improvement potential the difference is great.

There is a second objection: Such a book's "attractive" writing style pretends that one could become dan with very little effort. This is not so, because much more knowledge is needed than can be conveyed in a few such books with only little contents. Either a player must read lots of such books or he must accept also books with denser contents. (Or seek quite a lot of knowledge from other sources.) E.g., it must be spelled out what distinguishes a weak from a strong group, because such knowledge is essential for becoming a dan player.