Title of book - Milton Bradley Improve Fast In Go © Milton N. Bradley 2008, 2010 ======================================= Introduction About This Book’s On-Line Publication The on line publication of this book provides two quite extraordinary assets: - It’s FREE. - It’s perfectable! A printed book is fixed in form and content, and remains essentially immutable from the moment of its publication. So except for the inclusion of a separate list of errata or the subsequent issue of a second edition, any errors of omission or commission it contains remain unchanged forever....
Books
Improve Fast In Go - Milton N. Bradley Improve Fast In Go © Milton N. Bradley 2008 ================================= Chapter 1 - The Role Of Fighting In Go The financial investment model is an appropriate, if rather grossly simplified, way to grasp the essence of a Go game. Think of the stones you play as your investment capital, and the resulting territory you acquire as the return on that investment. It’s well established that a prudent financial strategy invariably requires a judicious balance between long and short term investments....
Improve fast In Go - Milton N. Bradley Improve Fast In Go © Milton N. Bradley 2008 ================================= Chapter 2 - Important Stones At each turn, the player’s primary task is to find the globally best move in the current position! In doing this, appropriate tradeoffs must be made between many diverse yet complementary factors (e.g. territory vs. influence, attack vs. defense, etc.) if a good result is to be achieved....
Improve fast In Go - Milton N. Bradley Improve Fast In Go © Milton N. Bradley 2008 ================================= Chapter 3 - Strong/Weak Stones Strong Stones Are An Advantage Strong stones require little or no defense, so they allow you to attack or play aggressively. Weak Stones Are A Disadvantage Weak stones require defense, so they also require more cautious play. In many real game situations, beginning or intermediate players may find it quite difficult to correctly determine, in advance of its being played through to a conclusion, whether a fully or only partially enclosed group is going to end up alive (= very strong) or dead (= maximally weak)!...
Improve fast In Go - Milton N. Bradley Improve Fast In Go © Milton N. Bradley 2008 ================================= Chapter 4 - Peeps and Cuts Peeps and cuts are among the most common mechanisms by which weak stones arise. **The primary differences between a peep and a cut are: - A peep’s value is often almost fully realized at the moment it succeeds in forcing the opponent’s connection**, so that in many cases it may then profitably be (at least temporarily) “abandoned”, to thereafter serve primarily as Aji....
Improve Fast In Go - Milton N. Bradley Improve Fast In Go © Milton N. Bradley 2008 ================================= Chapter 5 - Sector Lines, Enclosure & Connectiivity In the previous chapters we discussed the principles upon which fighting must be based if it’s to be productive, and then spelled out how to identify the weak, important stones which should be the objects of any attack. In this chapter we begin the discussion of the criteria for deciding whether and when to initiate or avoid such attacks....
Improve fast In Go - Milton N. Bradley Improve Fast In Go © Milton N. Bradley 2008 ================================= Chapter 6 - S.W.O.T. Analysis The themes we’ve explored in this book thus far provided the what, where, when and why of fighting. This chapter integrates those ideas and reaches their logical culmination in a technique widely applied in business management, known by its acronym of SWOT analysis, which enables the establishment of a rational and appropriate action plan....
Improve fast In Go - Milton N. Bradley Improve Fast In Go © Milton N. Bradley 2008 ================================= Chapter 7 - A Sampling Of Major Fighting Scenarios What we’ve done in this book thus far is to explain how to: - Identify the important weak groups which should be the focus of play. - Use the SWOT analysis technique to develop an appropriate action plan for exploiting those weak groups....
Improve Fast In Go - Milton N. Bradley Improve Fast In Go © Milton N. Bradley 2008 ================================= Epilogue Applying What You’ve Learned If this book has successfully realized its design intent, a double digit Kyu reader who finishes it should have acquired a set of new ideas which provide a much improved understanding of how high level Go is played. That’s a necessary first step, but real, sustained improvement will only result when those ideas have been permanently embedded in your thinking processes, so that their application has become an automatic, almost instantaneous response, rather than requiring the conscious application of a mental checklist....