Go! More Than a Game, Peter Shotwell

Go! More Than a Game is designed to enable beginners to intelligently
interact with anyone who has ever been involved in the game. Beginning
with a unique, abbreviated version of the Capturing Game that gets the
reader playing right away, it uses a patient game- rather than a
problem-oriented approach to encourage development. As the games
gradually progress from small 9×9 boards to 13×13 to the traditional
19×19 size, players will encounter all the basic techniques and
strategies that they will need to be using in their own games.

But Go is ‘more than a game’ and this book is for more than just
learning how to play. Assembled for the first time in one place is the
incredible story of how and why the game has thrived in so many
cultures for so many thousands of years. Besides chronicling the
evolution of playing strategies and styles, the game’s roots in
ancient Chinese myth, Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism are explored, along with illustrations of Go in Eastern art and literature, and its modern role in mathematics, psychology and computer science.

Peter Shotwell has been writing about the relationship of Go to
Eastern and Western philosophy, literature, and history for nearly
twenty years and has lived in China, Tibet and Japan while researching the origins of the game. Huiren Yang was the 2002 N.A. Oza Champion and Sangit Chatterjee is the author of Kiseido’s ‘Cosmic Go.’

Comments & Reviews

I bought this book, read it cover to cover without looking so much at the details, and it probably bumped me up at least one kyu level. What I like best about it is that it treats you like an aspiring beginner at the beginning, and then it treats you like a better player at the end. Peter Shotwell analyzes the games very well, and his variations all go very deep. And as players make large moves in the analyzed games, he introduces new concepts to you. I bought this book, paperback, for $13, and I still think it was worth every penny.

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This book will be very useful for the beginner but what I like best is all of the extra information about Go history in the back.

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