Games of Shuei: with commentaries

Honinbo Shuei (1852~1907) is one of the go players most admired by professionals. In great part this is to do with his style, which has greatly influenced later luminaries such as Go Seigen and Takagawa Kaku. But there is a special fascination, too, in that for most of his career he was a fairly ordinary player. It was only late in life that he surged to a supreme level - he has been dubbed the Meijin of Meijins - at which he gave handicaps to every single opponent.This book traces the evolution of Shuei's style by tracing his career chronologically through 121 games. Because he was so admired, his games have been commented by numerous players, including his own pupils such as Honinbo Shusai but also many modern players. All these professional commentaries have been distilled into a new Go Wisdom format, designed to enable the reader not just to enjoy Shuei's games but also to learn from them quickly and reliably.Shuei himself was a great teacher. Because he was so far ahead of his pupils, he willingly played teaching games with them, and their later commentaries are often imbued with his post-game comments. In addition, Shuei commented on games by other players. Although few examples survive, they are also given here, so making the total of games presented 133.The Go Wisdom format can be considered to form two parts. One is presentation of the games themselves, designed to make games easy to play over and the comments easy to follow. Here we see commentary based entirely on many professional opinions. However, following current theories about the most efficient ay to learn, the reader is strongly encouraged at the same time to indulge in "effortful practice." This means variation diagrams are dispensed with. Variations are given but in a way that forces readers to visualise them for themselves, and so learn better.The other part of Go Wisdom is a very large appendix of wise things said about go professionals in general. The idea here is that, if the reader of the game commentaries comes across something puzzling, or - even better - comes up with a question about something not mentioned, he can turn to the appendix and read up on that topic in depth. All commentary mentions of each topic are indexed, so that it is also possible to study each of over 100 topics (such as thickness, momentum, probes, moyos, bullying plays) over a very wide range of games with specific commented examples. Since, Go Wisdom is entirely compatible with other books in the same format (such as Genjo-Chotoku), the range of reliable examples and interesting comments to study can be enough for even the most serious student.This book is also backed by a full-length biography of Shuei, Meijin of Meijins, also available on Amazon. It obviously adds further details, especially about his pupils and other opponents. Read more