Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Vol. 3: Intermediate Problems, 20 Kyu to 15 Kyu

This volume is a continuation of Graded Go Problems For Beginners, Volume 2 and is aimed at the 20-kyu to 15-kyu player.

The problems presented here will require a bit of thought, but none of them is so difficult that a player who understands the rules, has had some experience playing games, and has studied the first and second volumes would not be able to solve in less than a minute.

Since the main aim of this series is to present as many examples of go technique as possible, I have avoided giving a lot of different variations of possible answers. Furthermore, the answers are sometimes abbreviated and not played out to the final conclusion. The reader is advised to play out these sequences to the end and attempt to ‘refute’ the correct answer until he knows beyond doubt that the correct answer works. In problems where there are numerous stone captures, the reader should play out the moves on a board. By pondering each problem in this way, the reader will develop an instinct for finding the winning move in his games.

 

Kano Yoshinori was born on April 14, 1928 in Kyoto and died on May 2, 1999. He came to Tokyo at the age of nine and became a disciple of Suzuki Hideko 5-dan. He became 1-dan in 1943 and in 1968 he attained the top rank of 9-dan. In 1948 he won the Young Professional's Championship, in 1955 he won the top section of the Oteai, and in 1961 he won the 5th Prime Minister's Cup. He played in the 14th, 20th, 25th, and 26th Honinbo leagues. In 1975 he went to Austria and Russia, then in 1979 he led a team of high school go players to China for a good will match. He graduated from the Japanese Literature Department of Japan University, making him one of the few professional go players to have graduated from university.

Richard Bozulich was born in Los Angeles in 1936. From the age of four until 17 he studied to become a concert pianist.He then studied Mathematical Logic at UCLA from 1953 to 1956 under Richard Montague.He transferred to UC Berkeley and graduated in mathematics in 1966.In 1967 he went to Japan to study go.In 1968 he founded Ishi Press Inc. in Japan and published more than 45 books on go.In 1982 he founded Kiseido Publishing Company and has published more than 60 book on go under that company.He started publishing a go magazine, Go World, in 1977. 129 issues were published until he stopped publishing it in 2013.He is said to be the most prolific writer of English-language go books, having written or translated almost 50 books on the game.He lives in Chigasaki, Japan and is the president of Kiseido Publishing Company.