My last post was more of a time-waster than a proper review. Nevertheless, I wanted to take a moment to appreciate the collection of games located in Games of Wonder.

THE SHORT OF IT: Games of Wonder is highly entertaining, presents some good puzzles to the determined player at my level, and seems like a well-curated collection. Its presentation is somewhat lacking and there is no commentary, but at $10, I think it was worth the money. The fuseki is just weird.

THE LONGER VERSION:

Games of Wonder is probably more significant as a collection of historical games than as a tactical aid. However, at my level it still has some tactical uses and I think it’s going to help my game.

What it is, more precisely:

Games of Wonder is a presentation of kifus. There is a short introduction at the beginning of the book that gives some explanation about the older history of the game, including some of the outdated rules. At one point, the game began with white and black stones on star points in a cross-fuseki pattern. White played first, there was no komi, and there was a de-facto “eye tax” of two points for each living group. It’s a little jarring at first if you’ve never seen an alternate play of the game, but it’s easy enough to get used to pretty quickly. There are a bunch of records without commentary in the book. No drama.

What the games are like:

The games in this book are all-out, brutal slogfests. I don’t know if it’s the cross-opening, the way older fuseki worked, or just the general attitude of the Go saints, but every single game I’ve played from the book so far basically becomes a huge, six-group semeai – often with a massive double-ko thrown in. Players hane and cut all over the place, and fights just expand to the whole board as the life status of a group in the upper right is often dependent on the life status of a group in the bottom right, which is dependent on the life status of a group in the center, etc.

Let’s talk about the fuseki:

Yea. This is weird. The first approach move is often the low knight, but players at the time of these games seem to favor a HUGE five-space low pincer as a first response. It seems like players are willing to settle for shoddy frameworks in order to ensure that their opponent doesn’t get a framework. It’s no surprise the games become so violent, because players make way too many groups in the fuseki for what I’ve learned.

This has me thinking that the book illustrates how theory and skill are different. Skill represents player’s ability to count and play the proper move in an established game (and the players clearly have plenty of skill), but theory is an attempt to codify that skill into a “rule of Go.” Older players, lacking the amassed knowledge modern players have, seem to be in the wrong – at the same time, it’s hard for me to prove it, since I’d have lost any game I play against these players.

As a result of this type of fuseki, there aren’t a lot of moves that I would really call invasions, per se. As I noted earlier, the players favor all-or-nothing fighting. It makes for excellent life and death problems, and is a great lesson in kiai for weaker players like me.

It’s also an interesting lesson in life or death for weaker players like me, because most games are played to their conclusion – blowout or otherwise. However, in some cases, the borders seem so open that it takes me a while to see WHOSE stones are even dead.

Basically, it’s impossible to predict the first 30 or so moves because of the odd fuseki, but after that I find it helpful to try to guess where I’d play and compare it to their choices. Generally speaking, even when I get the area right, the record favors the most aggressive play – inviting a cut. And indeed games include cut after cut, meaning that just about every move you have to track the liberties of a lot of groups.

I’d love to hear from a high dan if the games are useful to them, but I imagine that there’s still good inspiration for tesuji and for making big exchanges (there are a lot of big exchanges).

What the book is like:

I bought the book just for one reason: It contains a record of Nine Dragons Playing with a Pearl, which I hadn’t been able to find online. Of course, having played through some others, I can say that Nine Dragons is a very strange game, but it’s not my favorite. I enjoy the Ten-Game Match at Danghu.

The kifu presentation is somewhat lacking – it just separates them in order of 50 moves, regardless of stage in the game. Here’s a screenshot from the free preview on the amazon page:

It’s no dealbreaker, and in the absence of commenary, it’s not really the end of the world. However, there are some moments when I have to catch myself and say “oh, at some point they moved into endgame.” Maybe it’s an asset that I have to notice this, but some players who favor more subdivided games will have difficulty with the layout.

Inspirational:

Some people recommend reading Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go for inspiration, but this is also inspiring in its own regard. The players refuse to cede a dead group as truly dead, and there’s a tremendous willingness to embrace complexity that I admire. Personally, this does more for me than LITFOG – as long as I have a board to play out.

For me, it was $10 well spent.

Have you read this book? Were there any kifus that you found especially helpful?