Bruce Wilcox's Go Dojo - Contact Fights

by Bruce Wilcox

Product Features

• Squirm with the Abysmals (to 20 kyu) as you realize fundamentals you've never grasped
• Commit with the Acolytes (to 10 kyu) to acquire the rules of good play
• Study with the Ascendents (to 1 dan) to hone the skills you need to progress
• Marvel with the Adepts (to professional) at the advanced thinking of master strategists
• Also included is Kogo's Joseki Dictionary for studying joseki.

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B000STB5H0
• Manufacturer recommended age: 5 years and up
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #157,387 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Product Description

When enemy stones come into contact, there are several different kinds of behavior (areas of Go knowledge) that can come into play. One is "Life and Death: where you try to kill or live. Two is string capture and connectivity (areas where "Tesuji" come into play). The third is "Contact Fights", where players struggle to build walls, influence, and avoid having their contacting stones fall into one of the other two areas of behavior. Proverbs like "Play hane at the head of two stones" or "When crosscut play extend" come from contact fights. The Contact Fights chapter is broken into 4 levels of study (from beginner through dan level). Each has teaching, rules to learn, quizzes to test your understanding of the rules in board situations, and whole games at a variety of levels wherein you get tested continually on the application of a range of rules and see commentary of play and misplay involving those rules. Contact Fights is 1400 pages. Each level covers how to see the board and what rules to follow. There are interactive tests to confirm you understand the rules and a printable crib sheet to glance at as you take live action testing'of your understanding in whole board games. You play along with the original players - guessing the correct move for your level of understanding and seeing where the original players got it right or so very wrong. Should you get it wrong, Dojo reminds you which rule you're breaking and lets you try again until you get it right. At the adept level, deep game commentary about contact fighting illuminates the sophisticated rules governing play. At last you can grasp why stronger players make those enigmatic moves and why some people stay weak for so long.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The World's Best and Most Affordable Amateur Go Game Instruction, December 14, 2008

By 

John W. Eubanks (Alaska, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Bruce Wilcox's Go Dojo - Contact Fights (Toy)

I have enjoyed the game of GO since the early 1980s. In the past several years, I have paid over $2,000 to 9 Dan and 7 Dan Professional Go instructors; yet, I have learned more in-depth Go strategy from Bruce Wilcox's Go Dojo interactive instruction than I thought possible in such a short time. The CDs are loaded with detail on Go strategies, provides thousands of examples, and many tests to drive home the point of each lesson. There is instruction for those who are just starting to learn the rules of GO, through those who have years of frequent play under their belt. There is even a library of balanced opening play sequences (joseki) to learn with by practice.

If you are an amateur GO player, then Contact Fights and Sector Fights, will make you stronger at a cost effective price that is unmatched. There is much work involved, and much to learn, but GO is the most complex board game there is that can be mastered at its higher levels. Also, I found the instruction to be fun, and easily understood. There is so much instruction, examples, and testing of what you leaned provided, that it will occupy a great many hours of your time. Each CD is probably equivalent to taking a 3 credit hour college course on GO. It is not easy to master, but it is a very fast way to become a very strong GO player in a short time.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly useful!, August 31, 2009

By 

A. Saunders (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bruce Wilcox's Go Dojo - Contact Fights (Toy)

Much more valuable than any other Go material I have purchased or seen, book or web.

Part of the usefulness is the material itself -- it's unique, I have not seen fighting technique presented like this before. Supposedly it is heterodox (which is why its unique), but a lot of it is kind of codified experience of any sort.

The other part of the usefulness is the presentation format. Much more useful than any book could be, the interactive format is incredibly powerful! There are regular tests (more like quizzes ) that make sure you catch the concepts. And interactive, move-by-move diagrams are far easier to grok than book diagrams with tons of moves shown at once.

Especially valuable are the several fully annotated interactive games. You are asked to guess each player's next move. The ideal move (based on the heuristics presented) is shown, then the actual move taken, and why it was good/bad. VERY USEFUL.

It's the sort of thing you may want to run through several times. I would guess that this is targeted towards the beginner-medium level amateurs (like, 20k-10k? just a guess?).

I had an immediate improvement in my play after just a brief read through the beginning, and after spending a little more time with it I expect more.

Highly recommend. THere is also Sector Fights, which I looked at briefly, but have not gone through it yet. Not sure if its AS helpful, but certainly try this first.

Note: The actual media this was delivered on was just burned CDs (not even closed!) with hand applied labels in random spare CD cases. So, not particularly professional format, but really you just want the 1-2MB of files off the discs, then you can pitch them. I believe you can also purchase them (at some point, maybe not anymore) for digital delivery ... look around.