Weaker players often think of tesuji as the killing moves stronger players make against them. Yet often tesuji (strongest local moves) result in no killing at all and can have profound whole-board relevance. Sakata Eio's book, while loaded with death, shows that implementing a tesuji can also mean getting to live in sente, or giving up stones in return for unconquerable influence, or turning an awful situation into a slightly less awful situation.

There are three reasons this book is a valuable learning tool. First, each of the more than 60 problems is accompanied by not only the correct solution but also by the incorrect solutions (anti-suji), as well as detailed explanations. Second, some problems arise from joseki or deviations from joseki and, where applicable, Sakata shows how the problem developed. Third, in many cases the problems build off each other. A certain problem may be almost identical to a prior problem with, say, an extra stone. Sakata shows how such subtle differences on the board can dramatically affect one's ability to employ a tesuji.

The presentation style of the book gives the reader more than just an ability to recognize a tesuji in a contrived example. One learns to recognize the rationale behind the tesuji and not simply the tesuji itself; a rationale that can be applied to much more than just the 60 examples in Sakata's great book.

This book mostly consists of 61 tesuji patterns. Each section presents one pattern of stones on the board, how it arose, what the tesuji is, how people often play incorrectly, and some other situations with more or less the same tesuji.

I really like this book. There are lots of patterns in there, the discussions of how the pattern arose and how you could screw it up are useful, and there are some brief essays scattered through the book to lighten things up. There aren't any problems, but I don't mind that; you can treat each tesuji pattern as a problem, if you wish.