recommended_books.txt

I didn’t do a lot of book study, but the books I did use extensively were the fun and effective ones of the bunch. I had various Go clubs to go to and people to help me here and there, so along with online play and a lot of time on my hands, I had what I needed to learn well. Books definitely do help, and avoiding books is a bad plan.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Get Strong At The Opening, Get Strong At Attacking
—> I found these light and fun and after a read or two I was re-solving them in their entireties in under an hour. Great problem books.

Invincible: The Games of Shusaku
—> The book takes you through Shusaku’s life story in an extremely entertaining way, and each game is led up to by the (real) story events. The games are also fully commented. What did I gain the most from this book? Opening direction and priorities, and overall Go sense. The first 50-70 moves especially really cultivated my opening sense and put it far above that of other single-digit kyu players at the time. You don’t even need to read the commentary to learning opening sense from this book ,you just play out the games and you’ll see the recurring trends/choices and easily understand why once you think about it. Self-explanatory yet educational opening moves!

Opening Theory Made Easy
—> I never read it myself but heard good things!

38 Basic Joseki
—> A bunch of important joseki for any aspiring 1-dan to know. It’s very digestible and doesn’t intimidate.