Message-Id: <9306202104.AA22559@thor.INS.CWRU.Edu>
Date: Sun, 20 Jun 93 17:04:56 -0400
From: smg6@po.CWRU.Edu (S. Max Golem)
To: smg6@thor.INS.CWRU.Edu
Subject: Re: Contents of fuseki books.
Reply-To: smg6@po.CWRU.Edu (S. Max Golem)


Hi, all --

I thought that some excerpts from a letter Vlad Levin just sent me
might be of interest to some of you. 

Vlad states:

>I would like to learn some more fuseki (opening strategy? [yes]).  

That seems to be the major point of interest among the people who
have written in, but fewer than half of the total have expressed a
preference, so I really can't say (though I personally prefer fuseki
myself).  In regard to the level (9-, 5-, or 1-kyu), interest seems
to be divided evenly, with the 1-kyu books slightly behind.

More opinions, gang?  Suppose I were to limit myself to translating
only one of the eight books I mentioned -- which one would you
choose?  (I still have to translate and post some representative
problems from the various tesuji books.)

>I
>have for the past two weeks started doing some fairly systematic
>study of the Tesuji's in Basic Techniques of Go.  I have so far
>done 50 out of 70 example questions and am eager to test myself
>on the 50 actual problems following the examples.

I liked _Basic Techniques_ a lot, but some of the problems are
really tough.

>I find these
>tesuji's both useful in a pragmatic sense and very enjoyable to
>see in an aesthetic sense. For me, playing go is basically the
>creation of beautiful patterns.

You're developing an intuitive understanding of shape.  Surprising-
ly, the best move tactically often makes the most attractive pat-
tern. 

>Also I am studying the book 38 basic joseki.  It is simple and
>easy to read. So I think it is the best introduction I have seen
>to joseki.  Dictionary of Basic (???) Joseki seems far from basic
>to me and I could not recommend it to below dan-level player as
>it is so complicated. (3 volumes!!!).

I still go back and reread _38 Basic Joseki_ every few years and
find something interesting in it.  Ishida's _Joseki Dictionary_
is a reference book, and shouldn't be read seriously except for
reference and ideas -- just too much to memorize.

>The thing I would like you to send us Dojo members if you can is
>some compilation of relatively simple but nice games in which
>there is commentary on appropriate use of fuseki.  For example, a
>case in which one player uses thickness correctly or in which a
>joseki is not used correctly.  This seems better to me than going
>over a big book over the internet.  

I want to look at the archived games that Olli has commented on;
I've heard only great things about them (and I want to learn to
comment on middle-kyu games better).  If I find some that are par-
ticularly good at implementing the middle game from the joseki
chosen in the fuseki, I'll post them to the group. 

By the way, I'm starting to get rather low on student games for
comment.  If you haven't seen the one you sent me posted to the
group, write me -- I've had hard disk troubles and I may have stuck
your game on a diskette somewhere.  If you haven't sent one, please
look around and see whether you have one you'd like to share with
the rest of us.

>The thing I would like most to see from this dojo is situations
>in which one must either respond correctly to an invasion or
>invade successfully another person's potential.

Well, I've got good news and bad news.

Bad news first: except for a number of standard (small-scale) weak
points, techniques for invading a large moyo are not well organized;
on the other hand, this means that one can master a limited (though
not small by any means) number of "strategic tesuji" and know that
you can handle these specific cases without problem. 

The good news is that I have _many_ books devoted to invading stan-
dard shapes and defending against such invasions.  Any other inter-
est? 
>
>Thank you very much,
>Vlad Levin.

Thanks for writing, Vlad.

Max.