Customer Reviews

Go! More Than a Game: Revised Edition

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are two games of Go, the forest-and-trees welter of confusion that a beginner sees, and the game within the game that everyone else comes to terms with. Shotwell's book can bring you past the boulders of confusion and leave you standing beside the deep water. Whether you swim or not... :) He's also a geisha, in the well-known Reischauer/Culture of Japan academic style, so much of the book is full of reverent Taoist and Kung Fu mysticism which may be fun, but should be transcended as soon as you "see" the inner game. It's beside the point. Bottom line, I like this book. It nudged my game forward. That said, if you want to learn Go, you should get a good computer Go game, like Go4++ (Windows, commercial) or Sente Goban (Mac OS X, freeware), dumb it down and play until you win. Then come back to this book. There's a lot of satisfaction in that first win against a computer, and it helps the book make sense.

I was disappointed to read the last comment since I know the author and what he was trying to do and, as a go teacher, have seen his technique work on many people. As he stated on the first page ("How to Use This Book"), he was not trying to write a book that would just be thrown away after its contents were learned. That is for laundry list books and there are several hundred of them available in English for various stages of one's go career. What he wanted to do was to introduce readers to the dynamics of go playing--go is a game, after all, and not a course in school. What he advised the reader to do was to go as far as possible through the games in the book until they were stuck, then play alot (and, yes, also look at the laundry list books!), then come back, play some more and etc. That way, say over a period of time (and not just with one reading, as it looks like some commentators have done), one would get the feel for playing on, first simple 9 x 9 boards, then 13 x 13 and finally the full, complex, 19 x 19 size. By the time one finished, one would be completely conversant with any go player, and know much of go's 4,000 year-old culture and history. That doesn't mean you would *know* all of the techniques--only by playing and studying can you do that--but you would *know about* most of them and, you would also know what you *didn't know* and needed to. In other words, because of the immense amount of ground and the different levels it covers, the book is meant to be a launching pad into the world of go, and that it does admirably and certainly far better than any other beginner's book!

I am a long-time tournament chess player who is seeking to get beyond just knowing the basic rules of Go. This new title seems to offer a lot more bang for the buck than others I've reviewed. It even looks like a better buy than any single volume in the highly-regarded Janice Kim series (which has apparently risen in price due to high demand). Cost being no object, it would surely be better to own the first two or three books in that series, but given the price I think this offers better value in a single volume.

It's nicely written and handsomely laid out, and seems quite up-to-date (with information about playing on the Internet and the current [weak] state of Go-playing software).

I have over 250 chess books and consider myself quite knowledgeable in that field. This is, however, my first Go book. I fully acknowledge not having the experience to definitively judge quality as well as a long-time tournament player or teacher could. But having been around the block in life and having looked at a lot of Go titles before choosing, I can pretty strongly say that you could do a LOT worse.

In its price range, this fine new book could well become THE one to have.

My friends have been after me for a long time, ever since I learned to play this game in Japan, where I have been teaching for the last ten years. I went out of my way to write this review because, for other go players like me, this book is really incredible. The short introduction tells what go meant for all the different people who have played it for so long for so many reasons. The how-to-play section is the best I have seen for gradually introducing the game without the usual emphasis on doing problems, which is too much like giving out homework. Then, they can take a quick look at what it will be like playing on bigger boards. They may not understand it, but it is like a great taste to advanced go! They are given encouragement to keep playing and taste all the joys of playing. Then there is the complete history of the game! What a great service Mr. Shotwell and his helpers have done for the go community!

As a new Go player, I read this book hoping it would help me figure out what I was supposed to be doing. It covers the basics of the game but I found it not that clear or systematic. I had to pick up another book to really get a grasp of some of the basic strategies, and how to put them together.

The history of the game section, which takes up 1/3 or so of the book on the other hand, was very well written and quite engaging.

In short, if you want to learn basic strategy, there are many better books out there.

This wonderful book was given to me and it is so good that I want others to know about it. No wonder that David Carlton, who reviews books for the American Go Association, called it the "best one-volume introduction to go!" Just for the history of the game, it is a valuable reference and the learning of the game is easy and fun. And by the way, there is plenty about ko and there are plenty of variations (in reference to two of the readers' comments)--it is not meant to be a problem book--there are plenty of those around. It is more like a companion and guide to thinking intelligently about the game. Now I know what the "Dark School of Taoism" contributed and how King Yao came down from the heavens with his board and stones and what "The Thirty Six Strategies are! Thank you, Tuttle, for putting this fine book out!

This book contains a wealth of information for the Go player that's just beginning to play. It doesn't pull its punches but it also doesn't go into great depth on a lot of the concepts. There is a reason that most Go books come in series' of 5-6 books, there's just a lot to talk about.

If you're looking to start grab this book or just find a club in your area. There is a certain use for literature at the beginner level but playing one game a week with a shodan would take you much further than this book could ever hope.

When reading this book, it was something that should be read several times over. After playing several games, I got a feel of why the author responded the way he did in several situations. The book was much more valuable at that point. Fun and useful.

This book is sensational. The other beginning go books I looked at had about a tenth of the information about killer techniques, plus this one has the whole story of the greatest game I've ever learned--and I know alot of them. I gave one to my mom and she is hooked, too. You just play the games out and the game comes to you.

While this book introduces game play, especially to beginners, in a very helpful way, it also has pages of history interwoven throughout. A great book to give to people who are not game players, who ask you why you want to waste your time with it. I found the history in it helped parents of kids who play at an elementary afterschool program to understand the excitement these kids feel when they play.