Step Up to a Higher Level

In keeping with my developing habit of reading go books on the road, I brought Abe Yoshiteru’s Step Up to A Higher Level: Test for Intermediate Level with me on my recent cross-country extravaganza. It was lucky too; I travelled on a sleeper for the first time and learned first-hand how misleading the name ‘sleeper’ is when you’re in the open section with the reclining seats. I sat amidst some semi-professional football team that stayed up all night celebrating some recent victory and talking about girlfriends. No sleep was to be had, but there was ample time for go problems.

As a collection of problems, I think this book fills a nice niche. The problems are all clustered supposedly at the 8-7 kyu level, although I found most sections quite easy. I had the most difficulty with the opening section and found a few blind spots in the endgame chapter; the capturing, tesuji and life-and-death chapters seemed as if they were aimed at perhaps 10-9 kyu players. (Of course, maybe this reflects more about the imbalances in my own knowledge than the balancing of the book.)

My biggest reservation about this book was the language. I felt that the English translation was not always very clear and the sentences were often quite strange. I’m not sure if the translator was a non-native English speaker or was trying for some sort of literal translation; if the latter, my feeling is that the author would have been better served by a more natural, relaxed use of English.

I also prefer it when authors use Japenese/Korean/Chinese terms when appropriate if referring to a specific technical term. As far as I know, there are no universally agreed upon English terms for many go terms. “Net” and “ladder” and “knight’s move” are all clear to me as they couldn’t possibly mean anything else, but “skillful finesse” has confused me on a number of occasions, especially when I was a weaker player. I now assume “skillful finesse” means “tesuji”, but there have been occasions when I’ve thought that maybe it meant “sabaki” or something else that I could imagine having to do with skilfulness and finesse. Even if I have to look up what the words mean, I think it’s useful when non-English words are used as they clearly indicate that we’re talking about a specific concept rather than some wooly English something which may map to something one finds in non-English books or may just be an author’s way of phrasing his or her own thoughts. I’m sure this will become less of a problem as I grow in strength and am able to tell from the context what people are talking about, but for now, I find it easier to read and study when I can clearly map the words and phrases I encounter in a new book to the words and phrases I’ve already encountered.

There were a few occasions in Step Up when I felt that I had to battle with the English a bit and try to second-guess what the original Japanese word might have been. This translation already uses some common imported words (hane and atari, for example) and glosses nirensei and sanrensei in the editor’s notes (though I don’t remember them appearing in the text itself – certainly, they weren’t used frequently). Because of the slightly odd way in which some of the sentences were constructed, there were several occasions when I wasn’t sure whether the wording was just a bit strange or if the text was attempting to make reference to some specific concept.

So yes. In the final ‘Playing Strength Analysis’ ranking, I ended up with a score of 128 which put me in between the ’7 kyu’ and ‘Over 6 kyu’ category. Opening and endgame did me in. Otake Hideo, see you soon!

Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go: Life & Death

Unlike the previous chapters of Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go, “Life and Death” includes a number of problems for the reader to solve.

Kageyama states that the fundamental rule for living or killing is to increase/reduce eye space. Look at trying to do this first. If it works, great. If not, is there a “central eye making point” that could be occupied? If these two things fail, fanciness may be involved, but Kageyama recommends starting here when approaching life and death problems.

After some problems, Kageyama looks at an opening where there is a two-space jump along the side that is beginning to be surrounded. He demonstratesa situation where one can gain a lot more by surrounding a group of stones and letting it live than by killing some stones but making the opponent strong elsewhere:

“If Black can surround White successfully and gain outward influence, that is enough. If at the same time, he can contrive to inject some uncertainty into the question of whether White is alive or dead or what, then he will be ecstatic.”

He then gives some examples of handicap games in which he demonstrates how black should use the handicap stones to ensure that he doesn’t get surrounded and forced to live small.

Kageyama also enjoins the reader not to continue to waste stones on a group that’s alive or to play to many stones in one’s own territory once a group is alive. Sente is important, he reminds us, so don’t give it up!

The section on the enclosed two-space jump is extremely useful. In my own games, when I see two-space jumps that are beginning to become surrounded, my heart starts racing. There’s surely some way to play with these, I think. I get quite excited and then usually make some silly moves that end up helping the opponent. Or, if it’s me becoming enclosed, I panic and flail about until I ensure that I’m dead.

Of course, Kageyama has words to say about over-excitement as well:

“Does the blood rush to Black’s head at being thwarted?  I have seen a traffic safety poster that says ‘Temper causes accidents.’  Driving a car and playing go are both human activities, so what applies to one applies to the other.”

I’m sure over-excitement and anger have both caused many road accidents. Kageyama, I shall work on becoming a better driver.