http://www.kiseido.com/go_books.htm http://www.kiseido.com/go_books.htm Pick up "Tesuji", "Life & Death" and "Attack & Defence". Use "Tesuji" and "Life & Death

http://www.kiseido.com/go_books.htm http://www.kiseido.com/go_books.htm Pick up "Tesuji", "Life & Death" and "Attack & Defence". Use "Tesuji" and "Life & Death" to learn the how and why of basic go tactics and to prepare yourself to study problems in general. Keep "Attack & Defence" for when you are ready to learn how to actually play go on a strategic level. Pick up the "Graded Go Problems for Beginners" vol 1 - 4. Pick up "1001 Life & Death". Pick up "501 Tesuji Problems". If you play games and grind through most of this material, your strength will be around 5 kyu by any standard and rising. "Attack & Defence" will be here now to help you climb to the gate of the dan ranks and begin crushing your way upwards. I'd consider Ishida's "Dictionary of Basic Joseki" to be the definitive guide to how to think about corner patterns. The updated edition, "The 21st Century Dictionary of Basic Joseki" is much more up to date but suffers from shallower analysis and a narrowed scope. Dip into those books when reviewing your games and for regular study. Combine that with collections of professional games, commented and otherwise, to develop your sense of the opening and early to late middle game. I love to read go books (I own or have owned nearly every book on that page, as well as books from many other publishers...) but all the periods where I've increased in strength the most have been when I've played games and worked go problems on a regular basis. Still, "Attack & Defense" and those 3 volumes of joseki were instrumental for my progression from the weak end of single digit kyu up to 1 dan.