Description: Essential Life & Death 2 is part of the Essential Life & Death Series that is used as workbooks in private go schools in Korea. Though it might be seen as an addendum to the Level Up Series, it certainly can be used as a standalone product for anyone looking to study life and death.

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Description: Ishida and Davies lay down some basic principles, ideas, and tactics for attack and defense. There are a lot of examples from professional play, along with opportunities for you to practice what you learn.

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Overview

As many of you probably noticed, I have been pretty consumed with studying go and releasing book reviews as fast as I can. My progress with the Level Up series has been great! I’ve been averaging about 1.5 days for each volume. Not as fast as I wish I was, but not bad in the scheme of things. It’s been really great to see what kids in Korea have been learning and realizing how unstable my fundamentals were in comparison. I’m hoping that I will be finished with the Level Up series by next week so that I can find out what’s in store for me in the Jump Level Up series.

Also, many thanks to Malcolm for setting me on the path to finally working out the kinks in the email subscriptions. As some of you might have noticed, email newsletters are going to be looking a lot different! The design is far from finished, but I wanted to at least release the initial version of the email layout so that you wouldn’t have to deal with the horrendous layout that Jetpack was sending at one point. Hope it makes for a better reading experience!

**Update: It seems that Jetpack was still turned on this morning so the email newsletter might have been sent twice. Sorry to anyone on the subscriber list! I am working to iron out all the kinks with the new email subscription plugin.

Games

• DGS - 3 ongoing games
• Nova - 3 ongoing games

Education & Training

• Finished Modern Master Games, Vol. 1.
• Finished Elementary Go Series, Vol 5 - Attack and Defense.
• Finished Level Up 2.
• Started and finished Level Up 3, 4 and 5.
• Started working on Level Up Review 1.
• Started working on Mastering the Basics, Vol. 8 - Fight Like a Pro.
• Started working on Elementary Go Series, Vol 6 - The Endgame.
• Worked on Whole Board Thinking of Joseki, Vol. 1.
• Worked on Essential Life & Death 3.

I’m going to break my general rule of not posting twice in a day because the AGA newsletter has informed me of an awesome blog that I couldn’t wait to share with you!

Osaka Go Camp Blog

Here’s the basic rundown: A group of western go players are attending a 3-week go gamp in Osaka!!!!!!! They get to do all sorts of cool things like visit the Kansai Kiin and play with professional players!!! Ahhh!!!! Soooo cool!!!!!!

Of course I’m insanely jealous, but for those like me who probably won’t be able to travel to Japan anytime soon for a go retreat, this blog is a great way to get a taste of it for now. =)

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.

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Life and Death

Description: In this volume of the Elementary Go Series, Davies teaches common shapes that players will encounter in their games along with practice problems to train the reader’s life and death skills.

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Level Up 2

Description: Level Up 2 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.

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Book Details

Title, The Direction of Play
Author, Takeo Kajiwara
Translators, John Fairbairn and The Ishi Press Staff
Publisher, Kiseido
Published, “1st Edition - March 1979”
Language, English
ISBN, 978-4-896574-26-2
Length, 250 Pages

Table of Content

• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Direction of Play in the Opening: The Corner Stones
• Chapter 2: The Early Stages Are Decisive
• Chapter 3: Move Two Lost This Game
• Chapter 4: The Professional Approach
• Chapter 5: The Direction of Play and Joseki
• Chapter 6: Once Upon a Game
• Chapter 7: Test Yourself
• Chapter 8: The Direction of Play for Fighting

Synopsis

1. An excellent, although a bit advanced, book on direction of play.
2. Fills a much needed gap in understanding the opening and fuseki as a whole.
3. Requires a basic understanding of whole board thinking to really appreciate and understand the explanations.

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Tesuji

Description: In this volume of the Elementary Go Series, Davies lays out the some basic tesuji that every player should learn along with practice problems and different contexts for teach tesuji.

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