The Second Book of Go, Richard Bozulich

Reading this book will set the player who has just learned the rules of go on the right track to becoming a strong player. It instructs the reader in the proper way to plan his or her strategy and how to attack the opponent’s weak groups to turn influence into impregnable territory. It covers every aspect of the game – the opening, joseki, handicap go, middle-game fighting, tesuji, life and death, capturing races, ko fights, and the endgame.

Comments & Reviews

This book is a natural sequel to ’ In The Beginning’ . It touches upon all the major topics and acts as a good primer to the Elementary GO series

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Although this book was my second book and turned me into a 18 kyu, without playing anybody exept my beginner friend, I do not like it. The information is a bit too general, but my biggest problem is that there is at the same time, too much and too little in the book. I mean the material is quite hard at times (the Richard Hunter chapters) or just too early for most players of this level. I prefer Learn to play go and Cho Hun Hyun Lectures on Go Techniques.

There is a clear hole in the English go literature for the 20-15 kyu level in my eyes. There are some book that help these players, but not enough. Buzolich tried, but in my eyes did not find the right balance between too hard and too easy.

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The Second Book of Go gives the reader a broad overview of strategic and tactical concepts. It is not deep but it is seminal and it will give you many ideas with which to experiment. It does a nice job of being a bridge to Kiseido’s Elementary Go Series of which Tesuji and Life and Death are a part of.

Two particularly good chapters that are unique to this book are Seven and Eight which deal with Counting Liberties and Winning Capturing Races, respectively. These are subsets of Richard Hunter’s book which is published by Slate & Shell. To me, these are more into the challenges of an intermediate player but they are excellent areas to explore by beginners as well.

Either this book or Basic Techniques of Go would be a suitable choice for a second book. I personally would recommend Basic Techniques instead because, although its focus is a little narrower, it has just a bit more depth on the rudimentary skills that you will most likely be applying in your early games.

ChiyoDad’s Interpretation of the Rating Scale 5 = Core library item 4 = Good study supplement 3 = Fair study supplement 2 = Interesting 1 = Buy it if you just collect Go books

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I bought this book along with “Go For Beginners” (Kaoru Iwamoto) This book was a fantastic follow up, as it goes a few steps further than the beginner books. You can read this book over and over and get something out of it every time. A must read indeed!

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This book has been a great follow-up to Go For Beginners. As a high-kyu, some areas of the book are a bit beyond my ability, but I plan on reading them again once my play improves.

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My favorite of all books, highly recomended by the dan level leader of the Ausitn go club. Hits all the basic strategies and tactics with more depth than an intro book. You can read this many times and get more out of it each time.

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