Life & Death: Elementary Go Series, Vol.4, James Davies

Following the general pattern of its predecessor, Tesuji, this book organizes over two-hundred life-and-death problems and examples into thirty-six short chapters. Noteworthy features include:

The status approach, which takes the reader through the same analysis that he should perform in actual play.
The grouping of problems around common tesujis – throw-in, placement, et cetera – and standard shapes – the one-, two-, and three-space notchers on the sides, the corner L groups, et cetera.
A logical, step-by-step development, which makes Life and Death an excellent text to learn from, then an invaluable reference work to come back to.

Comments & Reviews

This plus problem books is all you need - Written by gowan

This book teaches the most commonly encountered life-and-death situations. If you really learn all of these, and work a few hundred problems that’s all you’ll need into the dan ranks.

good but hard. - Written by funkyj

Many of the problems in this book are way too hard for beginners (presumably an ‘elementary’ series book is aimed at beginners).

You will get the most out of this book if you set up any problems that look remotely challenging on a real board. Then limit yourself to a few minutes of working the problem before looking at the solution.

When I first tried this book as a beginner I got discouraged by the difficult problems and gave up on it.

L&D Fundamental Principles well explaine - Written by Ash

I am told that as a high kyu player, in order to improve I should concentrate my study on Life & Death and Tesuji. This is an excellent study aid for L&D and shows many ( all ? ) the basic shapes which frequently occur. My copy of this book is becoming dog – eared from use..a sign of its excellent value.

Tesuji and Life & Death: top books! - Written by ca.sch

The best L&D book there is. - Written by DrStraw

I have to respond to Malweth’s review. Who said this book was aimed at early beginner’s? I have never heard that before. I never recommend it to anyone weaker than 15k, but it is generally the third book I recommend (after "Tesuji" and "Lessons") for those who reach this level. Basic L&D is about memorization, not recognition: that comes later. It is impossible to learn the basic L&D shapes in the haphazard way presented by problem books. This book will teach you the basic shapes, give you a mnemonic for each one and leave you with a solid footing from which you can spread your wings. It is NOT a tsumego problem book, like Graded Go Problems, or Bozulich’s later works: it is an encyclopedia. I have been recommending this book to everyone I have taught, ever since it was published. In fact, I tell everyone that if they ever want to reach 5d, then they have to commit both this book and "Tesuji" to memory so that they do not need to think about these basic shapes in a game. Once these critical shapes are hardwired in your memory, then you can think about trying problem books. This book is a definite 6 out of 5 for all players from 15k to 1k and is also excellent review for all dan players. Players weaker than 15k should probably avoid it and try the early volumes of Graded Go Problems. Once you can solve all the problems in the first 3 volumes of those you should read this book before any other L&D books.

Too hard for the target audience - Written by malweth

This book is too hard for the target audience (early beginners) and too encyclopedic. The first few chapters are somewhat useful, but mnemonics like "six live, five die" cause more problems than solutions! I don’t like the fact that this book seems to promote memorization of basic "rules" to life & death. Life and death is about reading, and the only way to increase this ability is through pattern RECOGNITION, not pattern memorization. The way to reach this goal is through lots of easy problems. The problems in this book aren’t bad, but the level of difficulty ranges from 20-kyu to maybe 5k or shodan. Instead, try Graded Go Problems and 1001 Life & Death Problems. These books have a larger collection of problems for a smaller target audience.

RE DrStraw’s review:

The "target audience" is the first set of books after your first book. The entire "Elementary Go" series is aimed at this group. 15-kyu might be appropriate if you’re on the new KGS scale, but I personally would say that this book isn’t very good before 8k AGA.

Best L&D book currently in print - Written by ChiyoDad

Each chapter of this book introduces the reader to commonly-grouped patterns which may be dead, alive, or yet unsettled. After a few illustrations, the reader is given related problems to analyze. The problems are most often presented with no prompts like “White to play” or “Black to kill”. You must analyze the position and determine for yourself whether an urgent move is needed by either side and if the formation may live or die according to who has sente.

Like Davies’s “Tesuji”, this is not an easy book and it will take a bit of time for you to finish it. Senior players have told me that they re-read it frequently. It is, IMHO, the best English L&D book currently in print. If you patiently use it to develop your reading skills, it is quite capable of notably improving your rank.

One of the better English alternatives is “All About Life & Death”, Vols.1-2, by Cho Chikun but this has been out of print for a long while.

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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