It was with a nostalgic feeling that I opened "Basic Techniques of Go" in preparation for this review. One of the first modern, technically advanced go books available in English written by professional players, it was the first post-beginner book I encountered in my own go education, almost thirty years ago. Opening my mind to the vast potential of the game, "Basic Techniques" was a revelation and in just 170 pages this book covers the same territory as five or six volumes of the Elementary GO Series. It was originally written in English in 1969 by two Japanese professional players with the help of Richard Bozulich, and targeted go players who wished to reach first or second dan strength.

Covering what one needs to know to reach that goal in such a short book means that it is very condensed. Even so, there are many find-the-next-move problems and answers, as well as chapters on tesuji, even-game opening theory, handicap go (nine-, six-, and four-stone games) and the end-game. Discussion of basic joseki and middle game tactics is sprinkled through the book. Many readers have remarked on the extensive use of Japanese go terminology in this book. By now useful English equivalents for many of these terms have been developed and become widely used, but when I first found this book it was so exciting for me that I didn't mind the Japanese terminology and I still feel that the reader shouldn't let this get in the way. However, there are so many more cosmopolitan books available now that any future edition of "Basic Techniques" should probably use fewer Japanese terms.

Although it's hard to say what level player will benefit most from this book (the authors assume a background equivalent to the material in Iwamoto's "Go for Beginners"), I think somewhere around 15-kyu would be about right. Another interesting possible use for this book would be as a comprehensive 1-stop review for single-digit kyu players who have probably seen most of the topics in other books.

I have the newest edition of Basic Techniques. It has the chapters in a different order, and has done away with most of the Japanese terminology.

This is an introductory book, for people who have learned the rules and want to know what to do next. Its chapters cover tesuji, fuseki for even, nine-stone, six-stone, and four-stone games, and the endgame.

It's not a very gentle book. It covers a lot of stuff in a short amount of space, and you need a lot of discipline to read it. If you understand everything in here, you'll know more than you would after reading other introductory books, but it would take quite a lot of work to understand everything in here. It's much more likely that you'll give up with this book, annoyed with it, yourself, the game, or all of the above. Given that there are other, gentler books out there, I wouldn't recommend this book to anybody until they've got a fair amount of go under their belt and have read some other books. It's also pretty heavy on Japanese terms, which doesn't help novices.

There is a newer edition, which I haven't read; it may well correct many of my complaints, at least somewhat. If anybody has an opinion on the differences between the two editions, please tell me. It has a sort of sequel as well, namely Strategic Concepts of Go. It was printed in both hardcover and paperback.

I've been teaching Go since the late 1960's and, since it was published, have always considered Basic Techniques of Go a major book for teaching people who are beyond the beginner's level. It really gives a lot of vital information, in the organized form useful for teaching courses in Go, that I don't see equalled anywhere else. And, no, I don't see it as a mere dictionary.

To this day, I find myself looking at it every now and then.

I think that, for the serious Go student, it is a wonderful book and I always recommend it before any of the others I have seen--and I think I've examined the gamut.