Go/Baduk/Weiqi Book Reviews
So why should you buy go books? To be blunt, you only get so far by playing games and watching lectures. I don't know any "single digit kyu" player that haven't read a go book. By reading through a good go book, you'll improve your game much faster. A book requires your complete attention, unlike video lessons or group lectures that you may participate in, and is therefore the best tool for impoving your baduk skills. Don't get mad at me for saying this, but paying a teacher for lessons when your a beginner or even single digit kyu is a bit of a waste. Investing in some go books would be a much better, and cheaper choice.
On this page are reviews and recommendations for different weiqi books. You'll notice there are 2 review categories. First, there are reviews for books that I have personally read. Further down I recommend some other books that people like, but have either not read, or finished reading myself. I hope these go book reviews will help you buy go books you like. Please bookmark/favorite this page, and come back before you buy your next go books. I will continue to update this site with information regarding good baduk books!
Go/Baduk/Weiqi Books I've Read and Recommend
The Learn to Play Go Series
The learn to play go series is a set of 5 books which will take you from a complete beginner to at least 10 kyu(of course, you wont get this strong only by reading books). Everything is explained in great detail and there are many examples given for the different concepts. You'll learn about the rules of go, life and death, basic shapes, opening moves and more, basically everything beginners should learn. I would say this set is probably the best choice for people that want to start learning go.
Rating: 9/10 Difficulty level: 30 - 10 kyu
Get: Learn to Play Go - Volume 1
Go for Beginners
This book is meant for beginners, and teaches the rules of go, life and death situations and basic shapes you should know. You'll also learn basic strategies, opening moves and some invasions. This is a good beginners book that covers what you need to know to advance to around 12-15 kyu. If you want a faster paced book than the learn to play go series, or just dont want to buy 5 books, I recommend you get this instead.
Rating: 8/10 Difficulty level: 30 - 12 kyu
Get: Go for Beginners
Opening Theory Made Easy
This is a great book that will explain how to play in the most common situations in the opening. Opening theory made easy teaches direction of play, good shape moves and tesujis, usage of common josekis, as well as good invasion and attacking points in the early stage of the game. The book is very well organized being divided into 20 "principals". Each principal is like its own little chapter where a certain concept/situation is explained. I read this book for the first time when I was around 8 kyu and it really improved my game. I would recommend this book to anyone who is a kyu player.
Rating: 10/10 Difficulty level: 20 - 3 kyu
Get: Opening Theory Made Easy
Tesuji(Elementary Go Series Volume 3)
This book is written by James Davies, and is a part of the elemetary go series, but there is no need to have volume 1 or 2 before getting this book. Tesuji by James Davies is in my opinion the best book on tesuji you can find written in the english language. This book explains both simple and more advanced tesujis and situations. For those of you who don't know, tesujis are "clever plays", which means good moves that may not look obvious at first glance. Learning tesujis will help improve your reading and help you recognize good shapes. Knowing a tesuji your opponent doesn't know can be game-deciding.
Rating: 8/10 Difficulty level: 10 kyu - 3 dan
Get: Tesuji
The Direction of Play
The Direction of Play is written by Takeo Kajiwara who is a 9 dan professional player. Needless to say, the book explains how to use your stones to play in the best direction. There's alot of information about how to play in the opening as well as in the middle game. The author explains how to use points like the 4-4 correctly, and what josekis to choose in various situations. The Direction of Play is no beginners book. For single digit kyus, the first two chapters will be useful, but then the book gets increasingly more difficult, and the author assumes you are familiar with various josekis that kyu players doesn't necessarily know. I would recommend this book to anyone who is 5 kyu or stronger, although 5 kyus may find parts of this book a bit to advanced. If you're weaker than 5 kyu, I would recommend you get Opening Theory Made Easy instead, which also deals with the direction of play in the opening.
Rating: 8/10 Difficulty level: 5 kyu - 5 dan
Get: The Direction of Play |
38 Basic Joseki
This book goes over 38 basic josekis and how to use them, and is great for double digit kyus and weaker single digit kyus. It's a pretty famous book that has gotten great reviews. Understanding joseki is vital for getting better at baduk. Get 38 Basic Joseki along with Opening Theory Made Easy and your fuseki will improve greatly.
Rating: 9/10 Difficulty level: 30 kyu - 8 kyu
Get: 38 Basic Joseki
Invincible: The Games of Shusaku
This book is a must have for anyone interested in Honinbo Shusaku and his games. Invincible: The Games of Shusaku is a 420 page book which explaines 80 of shusakus greatest games in depth. The book has 143 games in total. Invincible: The Games of Shusaku follows Shusakus life, showing his games in chronological order.
Rating: 8/10 Difficulty level: 5 kyu - 9 dan
Get: Invincible, The Games of Shusaku
All about Life and Death - Volume 1 & Volume 2
The all about life and death books by Cho Chikun are great for kyu players. In volume one, basic life and death situations are explained. You'll mainly learn about life and death on the second line and in the corner. The problems are well explained and extremely useful to know.
Volume 2 deals with second line, third line and fourth line shapes, in addition to life and death in the corner. There's also a dedicated chapter on invading the 4-4 point. My favourite chapter however, is the last one, which deals with various ways of invading the 4-4, 3-4 and how to find good invasion points in the opponents framework. These invasions are really helpful for kyu players especially, since the positions explained in this chapter often appear in real games.
Rating: 8/10 Difficulty level: 15 kyu - 1 kyu
Get: All About Life and Death, Volume 1
Get: All About Life and Death, Volume 2 |
Other Great Baduk/Weiqi/Go Books
Life and Death by James Davies
This baduk book has gotten excellent reviews and is fairly cheap too. It contains a bunch of life and death problems, which is an important part to study in order to become stronger in go. This book is for beginning to intermediate players. What's the deal with James Davies' book titles though? He always picks such general names..!
Get: Life and Death (Beginner and Elementary Go Books)
The Baduk Made Fun and Easy Series
Baduk made fun and easy is a series of books that teaches baduk or go for beginners. The material is taken and translated from articles written in a Korean newspaper. There are 3 books in this series.
Get: Baduk, Made Fun and Easy Vol. 1
Get: Baduk, Made Fun and Easy Vol. 2
Get: Baduk, Made Fun and Easy Vol. 3
Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go
This is a popular beginners book for the game of go, and many will say it's one of the best books out there.
Get: Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go
The Second Book of Go
The Second Book of Go is a go book for strong double digit kyus and single digit kyus. While beginners go books usually covers all aspects of go that beginners should learn, the more advanced go books usually focuses on a particular topic. This book however covers many different topics in go. It's a well known book that has gotten great reviews.
The Endgame
There aren't that many baduk books dedicated to Yose or the end game of go. This book deals with just that. The importance of the endgame is often overlooked. It's very possible to win a lost game by playing the superior yose.
Proverbs
Over 150 baduk proverbs are explained in this book. Proverbs are sayings that for the most part are true, so understanding proverbs will help you get stronger. For example, a famous go proverb is "always stay connected", which is good advice for not getting killed on the board, since it's difficult to handle to many separate groups.
Positional Judgement
Positional Judgement was written by Cho Chikun, who is one of the top professional baduk players. The book deals with how to evaluate board positions. It will help you decide "what to do next" by helping you analyze the situation of each player during a game.
Go Basics: Concepts and Strategies For New Players
Go Basics is a beginners book that also includes a CD with Igowin and some other stuff. You can download Igowin for free though, so I don't know how useful the CD actually is (More about Igowin at the go software reviews page).
I don't know how good this book is, since I haven't read it myself. I do however strongly recommend
Go for Beginners
Get: Go Basics: Concepts & Strategies for New Players
Basic Techniques of Go
This book is for advanced beginners. It looks pretty good.
Go! More Than a Game
Go! More Than a Game uses an original approach to teaching go. Not only does it explain the rules of go through teaching games on all the popular board sizes, but it also contains a bunch of essays on go in culture and the history of go in depth.
The Master of Go
This book won't teach you baduk, but is instead a semi-fictional novel about the master of go(based on Honinbo Shusai), and the game he played against an up and coming player named Otake(based on Minoru Kitani) in 1938.
First Kyu
First Kyu is a fictional novel about a teenager that want to become a professional player. It's a well known and highly recommended book in the go community.
|
|
|
