Reviews►Books

Book Review: Level Up 3

Level Up 3 Cover

Description: Level Up 3 is part of the Level Up! Series that serves as a workbook in private go schools in Korea. Though designed for children, the content and practice provided is invaluable for adults and children alike.

Book Details

Title, Level Up 3
Series, Level Up! Series
Author, Lee Jae-Hwan
Translators, Lee Seong-Geun & Daniela Trinks
Supervisor, Yoo Chang-Hyuk (9P)
Publisher, Baduktopia
Published, “1st Edition: July 2008, 3rd Edition: October 15th, 2012”
Language, English
ISBN, 978-89-90965-84-4
Length, 168 Pages

Table of Content

  1. Baduk at the Asian Games 2010
  2. Capturing and Saving
  3. How to Play Baduk Well
  4. Finding Stones to Aim At
  5. Increasing While Decreasing
  6. False Eyes & Continuous Atari
  7. Continuous Atari
  8. Helping Weak Stones
  9. Connecting
  10. Baduk Ranking System
  11. Cutting
  12. Strong and Weak Stones
  13. Life and Death
  14. 3-Point Eye Shapes
  15. 4-Point Eye Shapes
  16. 5-Point Eye Shapes
  17. Professional Player Lee Changho
  18. Live and Dead Shapes
  19. Understanding Life and Death
  20. Approaches and Enclosures
  21. Where to Block
  22. Where to Escape
  23. Net - Three Liberties
  24. How to Answer
  25. Level Test

Synopsis

  1. Does a great job helping the reader take the next step into learning about life and death.
  2. The problems continue to be very thorough in ensuring that you fully understand the concepts (i.e., ladders).
  3. Continues to live up to my expectations of this series.

Before I Read This Book…

My Abilities

  • A mid to high SDK (single digit kyu) kyu who has read his fair share of go books and has a pretty strong foundation in the basics and teaching go.

My Perspective

  • Both Level Up 1 and Level Up 2 had surpassed my expectations, so I was excited for what was store for me in this book!

My Review

What did I enjoy about the book?

  • The introduction to basic life and death shapes is very thorough.
  • The way they progress the reader from simple diagrams to more complicated diagrams still continues to amaze me. A job well done!
  • Though Level Up 2 spent a bit of time on ladders, they still have ladder problems to continue honing and refining the reader’s ladder skills.

What did I gain from reading this book?

  • Polished my reading fundamentals.
  • Increased my speed at analyzing the status between two groups and determining which group to target if any.
  • Improved my ability to see basic connections and verify that they cannot be cut regardless of what the opponent tries.

What style of teaching does the book use?

  • Curriculum Style

    *   Content is organized into lessons, topics, or themes in order to facilitate learning.

  • Primary Learning Mechanism:

    *   Practice problems.

  • Other Learning Mechanisms:

    *   Simple explanations accompanied by equally simple diagrams.
*   Fun comics to help explain concepts like life and death.
*   Multiple choice and matching questions to reinforce what the reader is learning. For example, match the number of each move to the right term.

What aspect can be improved on?

  • I noticed that the answer book is sometimes incorrect or simply has the wrong diagram. This should be fixed since newer players could find it frustrating or end up learning the incorrect material.

Is this book easy to read?

  • Yes. It was very easy to understand all the explanations and progress through the book.
  • Though the series is designed for kids, both kids and adults alike will be able to learn everything they need to know about playing go in a fun and entertaining way.
  • People who enjoy learning things in an easy to understand format and lots of opportunities to reinforce what they are learning.

Where Can I Buy It?

  • Yellow Mountain Imports - $13.00 USD (shipping and handling not included)
  • Baduktopia - E-mail them at info@baduktopia.com for more information.

Other Books in This Series…

  • Level Up 1
  • Level Up 2
  • Level Up 4
  • Level Up 5
  • Level Up Review 1
  • Level Up 6
  • Level Up 7
  • Level Up 8
  • Level Up 9
  • Level Up 10
  • Level Up Review 2
  • Jump Level Up Series

Last Updated on July 11th, 2013