The Book of Go, William Cobb

William Cobb has taught hundreds of beginners to play Go in schools and colleges and of all age levels. He also received special training in teaching beginners from the Nihon Kiin (Japanese Go Association) in an eight week program in Tokyo.

Based on this experience, his book starts beginners off with the First Capture version of Go and develops naturally into regular Go, enabling players to achieve an effective understanding of the basic strategy and tactics of the game in a clear and straightforward way.

Both 9X9 and 13X13 playing sets with plastic stones are included with the book. The Book of Go is published by Sterling Publishing Co.

Comments & Reviews

I really don’t care much for this beginners book. It focuses quite a lot on Capture Go, to the point where it’s actually delving into the strategies of play specific to Capture Go. I’ve never seen this level of analysis elsewhere, which isn’t a bad thing… except that we’re not trying to play Capture Go in the end.

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I received this book as a gift well after I knew how to play go. (I was probably around 26 kyu.) I can’t say I learned much from it, but I’m still happy to have it in my collection.

What I really liked about it was the way it started with first capture go and transitioned into real go. Using the teaching model found in this book, I’ve run a handful of beginners workshops. I’ve found that getting beginners playing with capture go right off the bat, usually works pretty well. So, this book can be useful to anyone who wants to try teaching with capture go.

After the transition to full go, there’s a set of problems. The problems are at a much higher difficulty level than the rest of the book. But, any beginner who can actually follow them, should find them to be useful.

Another thing I appreciated about the book is the list of links and other resources at the end. Anyone reading this review, probably doesn’t need the links, and it’s not uncommon to see such sections in go books. But, if it wasn’t for this book, I might still be under the impression that Yahoo was the only place to find go online. So, I’m always happy to see this fat little book sitting in book stores, waiting to introduce beginners to the game of go.

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this is a great book for beginners. william cobb, in the beginning of the book, teaches the reader how to play “first capture go”. a game that is just like go, but the first one to capture 1 or more stones, is the winner.

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I had bought this book but later passed it on to my nephews. It’s good for introducing the basic rules and concepts of the game and it has a nice undersized set of platic stones and cardstock boards.

Its training method however first focuses on Capture Go which, according to more senior players, breeds a bad beginner’s habit of actually trying to capture stones rather than make territory.

The better alternative to consider is Janice Kim’s “Learn to Play Go, Vol.1”.

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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