A couple members have asked me for tips on what they should study to improve. There are a number of books I can recommend to novice and intermediate players, but first things first. The most important thing you can do to improve is to play. You should play at least a couple games a week if you want to improve, and more if you want to improve significantly. You can read all you want, but the ideas won’t matter one whit if you don’t learn how to apply them in your games. If you can’t make it to the club, or you just want to get in more games, just jump on KGS.

Just as important as playing is to review your games. This is where KGS is really useful because your games are automatically recorded. If you can find a stronger player to review with, they can help you point out mistakes you didn’t even know you made and can answer your questions about difficult situations. If you go to the Beginner’s Room or the KGS Teaching Ladder you’ll be able to find somebody who can help you out. Even if you don’t have a stronger player to review with, just go over the game yourself. Try to find the points you thought were the biggest errors on your part and try to work out a better solution.

It’s also really important to do problems. This is the best way to improve your tactics and life and death skills. Try for a mix of difficulty. Do some easy ones where you can solve them in just few seconds, and do some hard ones where you have to take a few minutes to work them out and you might get them wrong. Most importantly, do problems you enjoy, because it’s one of the best ways to improve.

With that out of the way, I have some specific book recommendations below the fold.

Go is a bit of a niche market, so Amazon does not have all of these in stock; a few are only sold there used at inflated prices. All the books I recommend are in print and are available from the publishers (Kiseido and Slate & Shell) at normal retail prices if you can’t find them elsewhere.

---

Most of these recommendations are for people those who are familiar with the basics of the game. You should have some games under your belt and should be familiar with terms like atari, ladder, net, cut, jump, hane, life and death, etc. If you are still geting acquainted with the rules or don’t know any of those concepts most of these books are going to be too difficult for you at this point. If you are looking for something more elementary, this interactive tutorial is a good place to get started.

If you’re looking for an introductory book, Janice Kim’s Learn to Play Go
series is a fine introduction. Volumes I and II will get your feet wet, and if you like the style of the first couple, you can go on to the later volumes to get into more advanced topics. However, I think other books do a better job once you get beyond the basics.

---

If you’re looking for a general purpose book on the game of go, Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go is an excellent choice. As the title suggests, the book covers general concepts and fundamentals more than specific sequences or techniques. Kageyama writes in an engaging and humorous style, introducing principles to follow, but also encouraging the right attitude to play and study go well.

Some concepts and some of the sequences shown may be difficult for a double-digit kyu, but the principles introduced are useful for a player of any level, and even the difficult parts are an entertaining read. It’s worth coming back to again and again as you get stronger; you’ll get a deeper understanding of the ideas that were confusing before, and you’ll be reminded of the fundamentals that you may have lost focus on.

Yilun Yang’s The Fundamental Principles of Go is a somewhat more advanced fundamentals book. Yang’s an experienced teacher and his style makes for an effective read though much of the material is fairly difficult. Topics covered include the opening, joseki, invasion and reduction with specific examples and sequences.

Yang’s Workshop Lectures series is also worth checking out if you liked his Fundamentals.

---

Tesuji is the most important introductory book on the tactical elements of the game. This is where you want to start if you are serious about improving your tactical reading. It goes beyond basic ladders and nets to discuss the clamp, snapback, loose ladders, squeeze and other tesuji for capturing, cutting, connecting and making life. An understanding of tesuji and an ability to read ahead is essential for getting a good result when the battle gets up-close and personal.

Each chapter introduces a type of tesuji and gives a number of problems to test your understanding. This book is fairly challenging; some of the problems are difficult even for single-digit kyus. However, the concepts are very important so even a mid-teen kyu will get a lot out of it. As with most of the books I’m recommending, you’ll want to come back to it again to review as you get stronger.

---

With a vast open board in front of you, the opening can be the most daunting part of the game to a beginner. Opening Theory Made Easy is a brilliant, no-nonsense book introducing 20 general principles of the opening. The examples are cleverly composed and though-provoking. It is easily my favorite go book on a specific subject. I cannot overstate how good this book is.

If you are collecting the complete set of the Elementary Go Series, In the Beginning is also a good book on the opening, but is not as readable as Opening Theory Made Easy, and does not have as many examples.

---

If you’ve broken into the single-digit kyus, or are approaching that level, an understanding of the middle-game is going to become essential. Attack and Defense is probably the best introductory English-language book on the subject. You’ll learn what it means to attack, and why. You’ll learn how to attack to gain profit or power, how to use influence and thickness, moves that destroy your opponent’s eye shape, and all the other essential techniques of the middle-game. The book is filled with real-life examples from professional games as well as problems to test your understanding.

This book is fairly challenging and will probably be difficult for the mid-teen kyu. I don’t recommend approaching it until you’ve gone through Tesuji at least once.

---

If you feel like working on life and death, the Elementary Go Series book Life and Death is a good place to start. It covers the basic life and death shapes and is full of problems to tune your reading skills.

This book covers a wide range of difficulty; from very basic shapes like the bulky-five to the incredibly complicated like the carpenter’s square.

---

If you are serious about improving, doing problems is essential. There are many, many, many problem books out there, and any that are the appropriate difficulty level are fine. The four-volume set Graded Go Problems for Beginners is a good place to start. Volume 1 is very introductory and is suitable for a complete beginner; if you’ve worked your way into the teen kyus you may want to jump straight to Volume 2. Volume 3 is more challenging, and Volume 4 offers a workout for single-digit kyus.

Another problem book I recommend is Get Strong at Tesuji. This book focuses on tactical, tesuji and shape problems, and less on life and death, which is the usual focus of most problem books. This book is a good compliment to Davies’ Tesuji if you found the problems in that book too difficult. The problems have star ratings to indicate their difficulty; single ☆ are suitable for even 20 kyu players, while ☆☆☆☆ are challenging for a mid single-digit kyu. Most are easier problems (☆☆☆☆ are less than 10% of the book), and by comparison, most of the problems in Tesuji are equivalent to the ☆☆☆ or ☆☆☆☆ problems.

---

I’ll put together another post later on on-line study resources.