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yorugua1891's review
3.0
This volume has its pluses and minuses.
As you can see by my rating, I have mixed emotions about this volume. Let me start with the bad points. The first part of the book goes over Seven Dangers and Eight Secrets, which would be a good idea if the instruction was at the level it should have been. In this section we just get an enumeration of this we should and shouldn't do when playing. The comments are really brief and do not really go much above and beyond what we already received in the previous volumes. I have actually read a book that is much better at conveying this same concepts, especially the misconceptions beginners usually have about the game. If you are interested in that specific topic you should check out "How Not to Play Go" by Yuan Zhou. This book has clear examples as to what to avoid and is very good instruction.
Anyway, back to this book, the parts I liked were the commented games. The second part of the book presents three commented games and these have a pretty high instructional value. Two of them are handicapped games and we get to see a little bit about the strategy to use in these games, which is very useful to the beginner since in many cases she will be playing black with some kind of handicap. The other game is an even game between two professionals. Even though it is a rather complex game, the authors focus on explaining the major aspects to the reader and do a very good job at that.
The book ends with a test similar to the one presented in volume 2. To summarize, the reason why I am giving this book only 3 stars is that I feel that the first part was the result of a lazy effort and was there just as an excuse to say they were giving the beginner more insights. There is not value in that, the games are the meat of this book, and in that part, I would have given a 4 star rating.
As you can see by my rating, I have mixed emotions about this volume. Let me start with the bad points. The first part of the book goes over Seven Dangers and Eight Secrets, which would be a good idea if the instruction was at the level it should have been. In this section we just get an enumeration of this we should and shouldn't do when playing. The comments are really brief and do not really go much above and beyond what we already received in the previous volumes. I have actually read a book that is much better at conveying this same concepts, especially the misconceptions beginners usually have about the game. If you are interested in that specific topic you should check out "How Not to Play Go" by Yuan Zhou. This book has clear examples as to what to avoid and is very good instruction.
Anyway, back to this book, the parts I liked were the commented games. The second part of the book presents three commented games and these have a pretty high instructional value. Two of them are handicapped games and we get to see a little bit about the strategy to use in these games, which is very useful to the beginner since in many cases she will be playing black with some kind of handicap. The other game is an even game between two professionals. Even though it is a rather complex game, the authors focus on explaining the major aspects to the reader and do a very good job at that.
The book ends with a test similar to the one presented in volume 2. To summarize, the reason why I am giving this book only 3 stars is that I feel that the first part was the result of a lazy effort and was there just as an excuse to say they were giving the beginner more insights. There is not value in that, the games are the meat of this book, and in that part, I would have given a 4 star rating.
adrianasturalvarez's review
3.0
Well after taking the quiz I scored at the very top of "Average" which means I must have learned something from this book but the lessons were so subtle and so short (most of this volume is commentary on demonstrative games) that I can't be certain. There are still many tactical concepts mentioned quickly here that I need to either work out for myself or see explained in detail. Overall this book left me feeling less confident about concepts which go beyond basic tactics but it did fill in a poetic aspect to the game, which is part of why I am so enamored.
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