Train Like a Pro 1, Sung-Rae Kim

From Yutopian and Slate & Shell:

The books contains problems on the following subject: close combat, opening, joseki, endgame, joseki, whole board. The answers are in a separate booklet. Together with the answers booklet, this is an ideal tool for self study. In Korea this way of studying, solving problems, is considered the most effective way of advancing one’s playing strength.

Sample Pages Available.

Comments & Reviews

these books are great! I’m AGA 4d (KGS 3d) and they’re definitely helping me improve, find the weak points in my game, etc.

The problems are broken into days of study, and have sections on “close combat”, opening, joseki, life & death, pro play (guess the move) and endgame for each day.

4 of those 6 sections involve heavy reading problems, so expect your reading to improve.

The reading problems are challenging and generally haven’t appeared in western go books, particularly some of the joseki questions that are more of “here’s the followup potential after the joseki has been completed”

The pro problems are pretty interesting too, they give a full board position and say “show the next x moves.” Gotta read, analyze, make the positional judgement, and determine the response. The difficulty here is very wide.

The opening problems are generally much, much easier. I blaze through them without much trouble.

The endgame problems are hard for me, esp because I don’t know a good way to do them :D. They are presented as a 13×13 game, they say “black to move” and then expect you to finish the game out and know who wins & by how much. Good exercise! But hard :) And you can’t cheat, which brings me to…

The chief virtue of this book is that there are no answers. The reading problems especially, this forces you to actually do them. I, personally, have the willpower of a wet sock, and found this feature maddeningly “beneficial.”

Bottom line: if you want a bunch of problems that guide you through a difficult course of study, with no explanations, alternatives, or lectures, this is your book. Just you and “the tyranny of the go board.”

The difficulty level is definitely up there. I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re under 5k, though, and even then, it’ll be hard reading & slow going.

If you go through the 60 day course though, i definitely think it’ll make you much, much stronger…but i wouldn’t know, since i’m going very slowly (see discipline comments above :)

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