Robert Jasiek
2015-05-05 12:22:55 UTC
My 11th book Tactical Reading is available for EUR 26.50 (book) or EUR
13.25 (PDF). It has 267 pages, the contents teaches in general how to
read and solve tactical problems efficiently. The book is for 13 kyu
to 3 dan, explains the theory and has 100 problems with detailed
answers.
Information:
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/TacticalReading.html
Table of contents:
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/TacticalReading_TOC.pdf
Sample pages:
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/TacticalReading_Sample.pdf
Review:
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/TacticalReading_Review.html
**************************************************************************
Tactical Reading - Review by the Author
General Specification
* Title: Tactical Reading
* Author: Robert Jasiek
* Publisher: Robert Jasiek
* Edition: 2015
* Language: English
* Price: EUR 26.50 (book), EUR 13.25 (PDF)
* Contents: reading
* ISBN: none
* Printing: good
* Layout: almost good
* Editing: good
* Pages: 267
* Size: 148mm x 210mm
* Diagrams per Page on Average: 5.5
* Method of Teaching: principles, methods, decisions, examples,
increasing difficulty
* Read when EGF: 13k - 3d
* Subjective Rank Improvement: o (after reading once) or ++ (when
always applying the theory)
* Subjective Topic Coverage: o
* Subjective Aims' Achievement: ++
Introduction
Strategy, tactics and judgement are the major aspects of Go skill.
Tactics rely on reading and prior knowledge. Reading is the process of
imagining tactical sequences of well chosen moves. Prior knowledge
abbreviates current reading by relying on the results of earlier
reading. Since unguided tactical reading can be arbitrarily complex,
we need means of simplification: reading principles and methods,
techniques and prior shape knowledge.
This book uses the holistic approach of providing a generally
applicable explanation of reading: the emphasised reading principles
and methods apply to all, or a great fraction of all, problems
occurring in one's actual games. The book tells us in general how to
read and how to solve problems correctly and efficiently. The answers
to the problems provide a detailed explanation of the thinking when
reading sequences and making decisions.
Besides an introductory overview on the theory, a short conclusion and
an index of keywords and techniques, the book consists of two parts:
theory (95 pages) and problems (153 pages).
Theory
The chapter of theory of tactical reading explains the basics,
simplifications and two methods.
The basics include the following topics: aims, imagining sequences,
choice, iteration, correct reading and essential status knowledge.
Teaching relies on principles, general explanations and examples. Most
of the principles are short, therefore easy to learn and remember, and
always applicable (e. g., ignore obvious failures and obviously
inferior moves). A few other principles are frequently worth
considering (e.g., ordering moves by perceived likelihood of success)
or applicable only under special circumstances (e.g., in the case of a
symmetric shape). Every principle is accompanied by circa three, often
simple, examples.
The topic 'aims' discusses the opponent's complementary aim,
formulating good aims, secondary aims, verification of a one-sided
status and intentional sacrifices. The subchapter of imagining
sequences describes shortly how to imagine them and how to construct
meaningful sequences. The theory of choice, correct reading and
essential status knowledge is so basic and important that one wonders
why almost all kyu players do not apply it; they get their ultimately
clear reminder to adopt and always apply the related principles.
Due to the complexity of unguided reading, reading theory must provide
such kinds of great simplifications that maintain the correctness of
solutions. Besides what has been mentioned before, the book provides,
in particular, the following additional kinds of such simplifications:
successful choice of the next move, good purpose, interesting moves,
sequences of obvious moves, reversion, prior knowledge and important
moves. Every related principle is very powerful and efficiently
discards many superfluous variations.
Besides the swift, but rarely applicable, method of 'test reading',
the major method is called 'regular reading'. This fundamental method
applies to every problem of tactical reading and is what every player
is, or should be, using. Furthermore, the method incorporates the
major principles of simplification. Despite the central importance of
regular reading, its accurate description remained a mystery and the
author needed to invest meticulous effort to write it down correctly.
The reader gets several chances to understand regular reading well.
Before the method itself is stated, the basic theory chapters
introduce every single aspect, and iteration of sequences and
follow-up variations is explained in theory and with detailed
examples. Then the meaning of each of the method's aspects is
discussed carefully, examples explain them and extraordinarily
detailed examples demonstrate the application of regular reading and
the thinking of related decision-making.
Problems
The book contains 100 problems, of which almost all are newly
invented, on the topics of important moves (10 problems), connection
and cut (27), block (10), capture and prevented capture (42),
miscellaneous (11). These are the most basic, by far most frequent and
therefore most important topics of tactical reading. The capture topic
includes simple captures of cutting strings as well as life and death
problems. The problem diagrams have a big size to ease the reading
exercise. A chapter starts with its problem diagrams and concludes
with the separate answers. In each chapter, the problems are sorted by
increasing difficulty so that the reader learns his current limit and
is trained for the more difficult problems.
61 problems have at most 5 (typically 3) answer diagrams and
explanations on 29 pages while the 39 most difficult problems have at
least 6 (and up to 64) answer diagrams on 104 pages. This balance
gives the reader both enough reasonably easy problems to become
familiar with reading and enough intermediate (and a few advanced)
problems to learn well also more demanding reading.
Players from 13 kyu to 3 dan find suitable problems, which resemble
problems occurring in real games. The problem tasks include next move
problems, establishing connection, cut, life or death, and verifying
the status of connection or life. Occasionally, playing elsewhere,
sente or endgame play a role.
The problems show the variety of reading skill necessary in one's
games: there can be one or several correct first moves - or none.
Reading must verify the latter by refuting each interesting first
move. This can be more difficult than finding some successful first
move. Since the reader does not know in advance whether a successful
move exists, his reading must be particularly careful.
The problems apply the theory of regular reading and its
simplifications so that the reader perceives how well he has already
learnt and understood the theory. The answers are as detailed as
necessary; they include all relevant variations (whether successful or
failing) and all the necessary decision-making for every branching
position! The explanations distinguish the mandatory from the
superfluous sequences. Most diagrams show non-branching sequences with
a few moves. When a variation proceeds after a branching position, the
move numbering is consistent by continuing with the next move number.
All these aspects ease following the diagram sequences, understanding
where reading branches and subsequent variations begin and recognising
the reader's related reading mistakes. He understands when further
exploration of non-essential variations may be interrupted by
proceeding with the essential sequences.
Every answer begins with a reference list of the used key methods,
simplifications and techniques and, if the problem has not already
specified it, the aim to be verified by reading. Every answer to a
more complicated problem also has an initial overview, a conclusion
and a summary of techniques and sometimes simplifications. The latter
discusses the extent to which techniques have been relevant for
solving the problem; more often than not techniques play an only
marginal role while the major effort of solving the problem consists
of regular reading and its inherent simplifications and
decision-making. The answers to the few most difficult problems
provide summarising, very condensed tables of move decisions as
another aid, whose reading is optional but can help some readers.
Comparison to Other Books
Despite the central importance of tactics, generally applicable theory
of reading and its means of simplification, there has been no English
book (and the author has never seen any book) devoting itself entirely
to the topic of tactical reading and teaching general theory of
simplifying reading. Maybe this is so because writing a book on the
theory of reading is a very demanding task. There have been only the
too short introductory chapters in Tesuji (Davies) and First
Fundamentals (Jasiek). In order to learn how to read and solve
problems well and correctly, Tactical Reading has been overdue.
In comparison to this book, typical tsumego, or life and death,
problem books have the following disadvantages:
* They presume, but do not explain, generally applicable theory, such
as the method of regular reading and its inherent means of
simplification.
* Techniques and shape knowledge are emphasised although these means
have a very limited scope of application. There are many techniques
but every technique only is relevant in a small fraction of all
problem positions. Even an impressive knowledge of particular shapes
only represents a tiny fraction of all possible shapes, and two very
similar shapes can have different tactical behaviours. One is lost
amidst too many techniques and particular shapes, often without
knowing when to apply which, or how to read when (as is frequent) none
applies or suffices.
* Almost all their problems have a 'solution' so that the more
realistic variety of some successful first move versus none is not
trained well.
* For intermediate and advanced problems, they only show a small
random selection of 'exciting' variations. Most explanation of the
related thinking and decision-making is missing.
Tactical Reading explains the general theory, emphasises the always
applicable regular reading and general means of simplification more
than the too specialised techniques and shapes, offers problems with
or without successful solution, shows all relevant variations and
explains all the necessary decision-making.
What the Book Is Not
Despite a good percentage of easy-to-understand contents, beginners
weaker than 13 kyu can be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of contents
and frequency of intermediate level moves. Players stronger than 3 dan
should know all the theory; nevertheless, they might profit from the
book if they missed just one of the important means or principles of
simplification.
The book describes tactical reading but forgoes dynamic reading with
flexibly changing aims and strategic reading above the level of
tactics. These can be topics for later books. Despite an explanation
of the most important techniques in a short theory chapter and some 40
techniques (which occur in the answers to the problems) listed in the
index, the book does not make any attempt of providing a comprehensive
overview on the hundreds or possibly thousands of existing techniques.
In the conflict between maintained quality contents, minimised large
white spaces, important contents on the same page and unimportant
contents on the same page, the layout sacrifices the latter. This
makes reading of the PDF edition slightly inconvenient. For perfect
layout, the book would have to be split into two volumes, doubling the
price.
Conclusion
Instead of many words, permit the author's simple personal statement:
I would have loved a much earlier access to such a book teaching how
to solve tactical problems efficiently!
13.25 (PDF). It has 267 pages, the contents teaches in general how to
read and solve tactical problems efficiently. The book is for 13 kyu
to 3 dan, explains the theory and has 100 problems with detailed
answers.
Information:
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/TacticalReading.html
Table of contents:
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/TacticalReading_TOC.pdf
Sample pages:
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/TacticalReading_Sample.pdf
Review:
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/TacticalReading_Review.html
**************************************************************************
Tactical Reading - Review by the Author
General Specification
* Title: Tactical Reading
* Author: Robert Jasiek
* Publisher: Robert Jasiek
* Edition: 2015
* Language: English
* Price: EUR 26.50 (book), EUR 13.25 (PDF)
* Contents: reading
* ISBN: none
* Printing: good
* Layout: almost good
* Editing: good
* Pages: 267
* Size: 148mm x 210mm
* Diagrams per Page on Average: 5.5
* Method of Teaching: principles, methods, decisions, examples,
increasing difficulty
* Read when EGF: 13k - 3d
* Subjective Rank Improvement: o (after reading once) or ++ (when
always applying the theory)
* Subjective Topic Coverage: o
* Subjective Aims' Achievement: ++
Introduction
Strategy, tactics and judgement are the major aspects of Go skill.
Tactics rely on reading and prior knowledge. Reading is the process of
imagining tactical sequences of well chosen moves. Prior knowledge
abbreviates current reading by relying on the results of earlier
reading. Since unguided tactical reading can be arbitrarily complex,
we need means of simplification: reading principles and methods,
techniques and prior shape knowledge.
This book uses the holistic approach of providing a generally
applicable explanation of reading: the emphasised reading principles
and methods apply to all, or a great fraction of all, problems
occurring in one's actual games. The book tells us in general how to
read and how to solve problems correctly and efficiently. The answers
to the problems provide a detailed explanation of the thinking when
reading sequences and making decisions.
Besides an introductory overview on the theory, a short conclusion and
an index of keywords and techniques, the book consists of two parts:
theory (95 pages) and problems (153 pages).
Theory
The chapter of theory of tactical reading explains the basics,
simplifications and two methods.
The basics include the following topics: aims, imagining sequences,
choice, iteration, correct reading and essential status knowledge.
Teaching relies on principles, general explanations and examples. Most
of the principles are short, therefore easy to learn and remember, and
always applicable (e. g., ignore obvious failures and obviously
inferior moves). A few other principles are frequently worth
considering (e.g., ordering moves by perceived likelihood of success)
or applicable only under special circumstances (e.g., in the case of a
symmetric shape). Every principle is accompanied by circa three, often
simple, examples.
The topic 'aims' discusses the opponent's complementary aim,
formulating good aims, secondary aims, verification of a one-sided
status and intentional sacrifices. The subchapter of imagining
sequences describes shortly how to imagine them and how to construct
meaningful sequences. The theory of choice, correct reading and
essential status knowledge is so basic and important that one wonders
why almost all kyu players do not apply it; they get their ultimately
clear reminder to adopt and always apply the related principles.
Due to the complexity of unguided reading, reading theory must provide
such kinds of great simplifications that maintain the correctness of
solutions. Besides what has been mentioned before, the book provides,
in particular, the following additional kinds of such simplifications:
successful choice of the next move, good purpose, interesting moves,
sequences of obvious moves, reversion, prior knowledge and important
moves. Every related principle is very powerful and efficiently
discards many superfluous variations.
Besides the swift, but rarely applicable, method of 'test reading',
the major method is called 'regular reading'. This fundamental method
applies to every problem of tactical reading and is what every player
is, or should be, using. Furthermore, the method incorporates the
major principles of simplification. Despite the central importance of
regular reading, its accurate description remained a mystery and the
author needed to invest meticulous effort to write it down correctly.
The reader gets several chances to understand regular reading well.
Before the method itself is stated, the basic theory chapters
introduce every single aspect, and iteration of sequences and
follow-up variations is explained in theory and with detailed
examples. Then the meaning of each of the method's aspects is
discussed carefully, examples explain them and extraordinarily
detailed examples demonstrate the application of regular reading and
the thinking of related decision-making.
Problems
The book contains 100 problems, of which almost all are newly
invented, on the topics of important moves (10 problems), connection
and cut (27), block (10), capture and prevented capture (42),
miscellaneous (11). These are the most basic, by far most frequent and
therefore most important topics of tactical reading. The capture topic
includes simple captures of cutting strings as well as life and death
problems. The problem diagrams have a big size to ease the reading
exercise. A chapter starts with its problem diagrams and concludes
with the separate answers. In each chapter, the problems are sorted by
increasing difficulty so that the reader learns his current limit and
is trained for the more difficult problems.
61 problems have at most 5 (typically 3) answer diagrams and
explanations on 29 pages while the 39 most difficult problems have at
least 6 (and up to 64) answer diagrams on 104 pages. This balance
gives the reader both enough reasonably easy problems to become
familiar with reading and enough intermediate (and a few advanced)
problems to learn well also more demanding reading.
Players from 13 kyu to 3 dan find suitable problems, which resemble
problems occurring in real games. The problem tasks include next move
problems, establishing connection, cut, life or death, and verifying
the status of connection or life. Occasionally, playing elsewhere,
sente or endgame play a role.
The problems show the variety of reading skill necessary in one's
games: there can be one or several correct first moves - or none.
Reading must verify the latter by refuting each interesting first
move. This can be more difficult than finding some successful first
move. Since the reader does not know in advance whether a successful
move exists, his reading must be particularly careful.
The problems apply the theory of regular reading and its
simplifications so that the reader perceives how well he has already
learnt and understood the theory. The answers are as detailed as
necessary; they include all relevant variations (whether successful or
failing) and all the necessary decision-making for every branching
position! The explanations distinguish the mandatory from the
superfluous sequences. Most diagrams show non-branching sequences with
a few moves. When a variation proceeds after a branching position, the
move numbering is consistent by continuing with the next move number.
All these aspects ease following the diagram sequences, understanding
where reading branches and subsequent variations begin and recognising
the reader's related reading mistakes. He understands when further
exploration of non-essential variations may be interrupted by
proceeding with the essential sequences.
Every answer begins with a reference list of the used key methods,
simplifications and techniques and, if the problem has not already
specified it, the aim to be verified by reading. Every answer to a
more complicated problem also has an initial overview, a conclusion
and a summary of techniques and sometimes simplifications. The latter
discusses the extent to which techniques have been relevant for
solving the problem; more often than not techniques play an only
marginal role while the major effort of solving the problem consists
of regular reading and its inherent simplifications and
decision-making. The answers to the few most difficult problems
provide summarising, very condensed tables of move decisions as
another aid, whose reading is optional but can help some readers.
Comparison to Other Books
Despite the central importance of tactics, generally applicable theory
of reading and its means of simplification, there has been no English
book (and the author has never seen any book) devoting itself entirely
to the topic of tactical reading and teaching general theory of
simplifying reading. Maybe this is so because writing a book on the
theory of reading is a very demanding task. There have been only the
too short introductory chapters in Tesuji (Davies) and First
Fundamentals (Jasiek). In order to learn how to read and solve
problems well and correctly, Tactical Reading has been overdue.
In comparison to this book, typical tsumego, or life and death,
problem books have the following disadvantages:
* They presume, but do not explain, generally applicable theory, such
as the method of regular reading and its inherent means of
simplification.
* Techniques and shape knowledge are emphasised although these means
have a very limited scope of application. There are many techniques
but every technique only is relevant in a small fraction of all
problem positions. Even an impressive knowledge of particular shapes
only represents a tiny fraction of all possible shapes, and two very
similar shapes can have different tactical behaviours. One is lost
amidst too many techniques and particular shapes, often without
knowing when to apply which, or how to read when (as is frequent) none
applies or suffices.
* Almost all their problems have a 'solution' so that the more
realistic variety of some successful first move versus none is not
trained well.
* For intermediate and advanced problems, they only show a small
random selection of 'exciting' variations. Most explanation of the
related thinking and decision-making is missing.
Tactical Reading explains the general theory, emphasises the always
applicable regular reading and general means of simplification more
than the too specialised techniques and shapes, offers problems with
or without successful solution, shows all relevant variations and
explains all the necessary decision-making.
What the Book Is Not
Despite a good percentage of easy-to-understand contents, beginners
weaker than 13 kyu can be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of contents
and frequency of intermediate level moves. Players stronger than 3 dan
should know all the theory; nevertheless, they might profit from the
book if they missed just one of the important means or principles of
simplification.
The book describes tactical reading but forgoes dynamic reading with
flexibly changing aims and strategic reading above the level of
tactics. These can be topics for later books. Despite an explanation
of the most important techniques in a short theory chapter and some 40
techniques (which occur in the answers to the problems) listed in the
index, the book does not make any attempt of providing a comprehensive
overview on the hundreds or possibly thousands of existing techniques.
In the conflict between maintained quality contents, minimised large
white spaces, important contents on the same page and unimportant
contents on the same page, the layout sacrifices the latter. This
makes reading of the PDF edition slightly inconvenient. For perfect
layout, the book would have to be split into two volumes, doubling the
price.
Conclusion
Instead of many words, permit the author's simple personal statement:
I would have loved a much earlier access to such a book teaching how
to solve tactical problems efficiently!