I am a new player and I have been reading Go for Beginners by Iwamoto but I have a question. In the back of the book there is a section with two example games the author played in the past. On the first game at stone 221 there is no stone on the board but at the bottom it says “stone 221 connects”… I assume this means that the stone is played somewhere then maybe captured later and another stone is played in its place… but I cannot figure out where 221 actually is played. any help?
If someone actually has a copy of this book Im talking about move 221, figure 9, on page 125. I can try to post a picture online or create a link if a photo of the actual page would help. Thanks in advance.
A picture would help. This happens when the stone is played over the spot where one was previously captured - so the diagram already has the previous stone’s number at that spot. Usually the text will be “221 played at 189”, or whatever the number of the previous stone is… But sometimes the text can be different.
Is this at the end of a ko fight, and 221 would fill the ko ?
thanks for the info, there is a ko fight about 20 moves later on the same diagram so I was thinking maybe 221 is captured as part of that but I didn’t consider it may have a number from an earlier move on it.
I went back with the new suggestion and found that move 219 was a capture, 220 is atari and 221 connects back to prevent the recapture. I was so focused on plugging in the moves I was not zoomed out enough to see the obvious atari that black needed to connect.
Thanks for the help Walken!
As it happens, although I learned go from Lasker’s book in my youth, I relearned it 2+ years ago from Iwamoto’s Go for Beginners. So when I saw your query just now, I pulled the book from the shelf and looked it up. But I see now that you answered your own question. Anyway, I was tickled that someone else had learned the game from this book, which is rather old (1972), but still a great introduction, I think.
Thank you Conrad, I’m happy to know someone else can appreciate that a 45 year old book can still be relevant in the game of Go. I have made my way thought the book and would love to hear if anyone has any books they think would like to suggest next. I did find this resource http://361points.com/guide_to_go_books/ which seems to be a useful guide. But being that I have only been playing about 3 week it seems that my best learning comes from playing lots of games and then reviewing them carefully.
Also any general advice for a new go player would be appreciated.
Go for beginners is one of the most brilliant introduction to the game, written by Iwamoto K. who did contribute a lot to spreading go outside of Japan. Although out of print, I did myself a bunch of copies to distribute to newcomers. It’s especially attractive for players who wish some deeper insight from the very start.
Seems you already got good advices for how to start and enjoy at best. I could just add that most go books are awesome and fun to read, so you can pick up whatever you find interesting, there are no restriction as long as it makes some sense when going through. I wouldn’t advise the same later for intermediate players seeking more efficiency for their progress.