Life In 19x19

Imagine that you are ddk, sailing the oceans and after an intense storm your boat becomes wrecked beyond repair on a small uninhabited island. After a week you manage to shield yourself from the elements and manage to find food and a way to collect water. Your basic needs to sustain life have been met, but you need something to keep your mind occupied or you will go insane. On your boat, there is a very small bookshelf which can only hold 10-12 books. Boats sail by quite often, and you try to get their attention, but it takes a whole year before you are spotted and subsequently rescued. With no companion to play go against, Which 10-12 Go books did you take to keep your mind occupied and increase your kyu rating and why?

Invincible and then 9 more copies of Invincible in case the wildlife eats some.

Somehow this question seemed familiar!

Somehow this question seemed familiar!

Hi Dave, nice to learn something new a day.

Just Go already wrote:Imagine that you are ddk, sailing the oceans and after an intense storm your boat becomes wrecked beyond repair on a small uninhabited island.

I hope the small island has a good internet connection

"First kyu", the novel, should be in there, to remind me there are people worse off than me.

On the other hand, to keep hope that some day I will be rescued against all odds, I could use a copy of Hikaru.

To increase my kyu rating I would take 12 copies of https://senseis.xmp.net/?HowNotToPlayGo and alternate reading them and whacking myself on the head with them. Actually maybe one copy of Relentless (hardcover) for the head-whacking.

Opening Theory Made Easy (1) - all you need on the opening in the beginning
Graded Go Problems For Beginners Series (4) - basic and intermediate reading training
Attack and Defense (1) - all you need on the middlegame for a long time
Tesuji (1) - primer on Tesuji
1001 Life-and-Death Problems (1) - more reading drills
Yi Ch'ang-Ho Selected Tsumego Problems vol. 1 and 2 - more reading drills
Yi Ch'ang-Ho Selected Tesuji Problems vol. 4 and 1 - more reading drills

= 12 books to bring you to ~ 4-kyu : )

+1 'opening theory made easy' for brilliant kyu benefits.

I read that book a couple of times as a ddk and it helped me so much. Very easy to read and very easy to extract practical knowledge from. I remember it as one of the more beginner-suitable books I've read, but I've been meaning to re-read it again as I think I'd get a lot from it still (as a European 2 kyu). I find the title slightly misleading as the book seems to spend a lot of time in the crossover areas between opening and other elements.

I also love tesuji, from the elementary go series. I feel like that book taught me how to read sequences properly.

My first choice would be
-Learn to Play Go vol. 4 (Janice Kim, Jeong Soo-Hyun).
-Learn to Play Go vol. 5 (Janice Kim, Jeong Soo-Hyun).
Because they are comprehensive, and I like reading them. I have always preferred reading books about theory than books of exercises.
Nearly all the fundamentals are in here.

More Theory :
-Opening Theory Made Easy (Otake). Some basic principles about opening, attack, and shapes.
-In the Beginning (Ishigure). A bit more in-depth considerations about the opening.
-Attack and Defense (Ishida, Davies). The bible of chûban. Rather targeted at single kyus, but I feel at home in any book with theoretical principles.

Most common situations :
-100 tips for amateur players vol. 1 (Youngsun Yoon). Classical openings, plus some joseki (I'm less interested the third chapter, with specific and difficult problems) .
-100 tips for amateur players vol. 2 (Youngsun Yoon). Elementary corner invasions and Life and Death problems (I've not yet read the third chapter, about attack).

Another style :
-First Fundamentals, by Robert Jasiek. A quite easy book, for low DDK, but the intersting things are that most exercises show a whole board, or a large part of a board, which forces the reader to analyse complex global situations (something rarely seen in any other book), and also, it shows a lot of common mistakes made by DDK.

Exercises :
-Speed Baduk vol. 4 (Kim Sung-Rae)
-Level Up Vol. 8 (Yoo Chang-Hyuk)
I'd have taken the rest of the series also, if I could.
I've got a problem with good exercises books : I find them awfully difficult and boring. These ones are less often cited, but I find them just easy enough for me (if I imagine myself as a DDK). The right answers are nearly given in the title of each chapters. I like this.

SoDesuNe wrote:Opening Theory Made Easy (1) - all you need on the opening in the beginning
Graded Go Problems For Beginners Series (4) - basic and intermediate reading training
Attack and Defense (1) - all you need on the middlegame for a long time
Tesuji (1) - primer on Tesuji
1001 Life-and-Death Problems (1) - more reading drills
Yi Ch'ang-Ho Selected Tsumego Problems vol. 1 and 2 - more reading drills
Yi Ch'ang-Ho Selected Tesuji Problems vol. 4 and 1 - more reading drills

= 12 books to bring you to ~ 4-kyu : )

I like this selection of books! These are all on my soon-to-read list. Currently I'm reading Level up in conjunction with GGPFB and Opening theory made easy, then I might go through the Davies series. I own all on the list except the Lee Chang Ho books at the moment mainly because of the stupid import cost from China, but I keep getting tempted on the abebooks site.

If I could only take 12 books I would probably ditch the volume 1 of the Graded Go Problems though and save room for another good pick.