There isn’t much Go books translated to spanish, so I was thinking about shopping online. Kiseido offers a lot of stuff (and not cheap at all) so I was wondering if someone could advise me with what books are worth buying.
This is the LIST of books they offer.
I am around 16-18k strong, what do you guys recommend? Thanks a lot!!!
Graded go problems for beginners. Go problems are a very important part of study, especially in the high DDK range. Tsumego lets you know when you are alive, if you are alive, or can make life, then you can tenuki. The road to shodan is paved with tenuki. 
For things like the opening and joseki, you’re better off watching some of the fine Youtube lectures (for the time being). I recommend Nick Sibicky, his lectures are aimed specifically at DDK players.
There will come a time when you’ll need an in depth look at the opening and direction of play, but for now focus on tsumego and tesuji to practice your reading skills and grab the basics of the other aspects of the game from some of the free resources available.
Get Strong at Tesuji is one of my all-time favorite go books. It’s great for drilling the fundamentals, I highly recommend it.
The Graded Go Problems for Beginners series is quite good. The difficulty ramps up very nicely, and they cover a lot of ground, from life and death to tesuji to opening problems. The first one is very basic, so you might want to skip it.
Attack and Defense is a must read for any serious go player. I also quite liked Making Good Shape. However, both books might be a bit more advanced, so problem books are probably a better investment.
If you own an iOS device, definitely get the Smart Go Books app. There are tons of great, inexpensive books in it,with interactive diagrams.
EDIT: I also heard a lot of good things about Robert Jasiek’s books. He sells them as PDFs as well as physical books, so this might be another option.
Just one more thing about the SmartGo Books app for iOS (and hopefully soon for desktop):
On http://gobooks.com/books-by-language.html you can see there are also a few books in Spanish.
And yes, Robert Jasiek’s books are well worth reading (no matter the English in his first few books). At your current strength I’d strongly recommend First Fundamentals. Worth every cent.
<edit> Latest addition to my book shelf is Jasiek’s Endgame 1 - Fundamentals — after browsing through the first pages I can already say this is an extremely nutritious read. </edit>
Greetz, Tom
iOS, yeah, lol. I currently own a nokia asha 302, which I bought last year to replace my old motorola c115 (I am totally serious in this one).
Great guys, thanks for the responses, this was of great help!
I’m aware that nick’s videos are good, I’ve watched two of them, I’ll watch more in the future.
Here is a huge collection of go book reviews
http://www.gobooks.info/
I would highly recommend “Tesuji” and “Life and Death”, both by James Davies, which are volumes 3 and 4 of the Kiseido “Elementary Go Series”. Despite being labelled as “elementary”, this series is definitely not for absolute beginners, but suitable for DDKs trying to firmly establish themselves as strong SDKs.
I second all the recommendations for Graded Go Problems For Beginners. I am presently 10k or so and finding the third book suits perfectly. I bought the second book somewhere around 15k and it was fantastic.
Jasiek’s “First Fundamentals” was also extremely helpful. In addition I can strongly recommend “The Second Book of Go”, by Bozulich - both cover the same kind of ideas, but with very different ways of expressing them. Maybe the Bozulich one comes first, but then, you may already be strong enough not to need most of it.
legas – IWAMOTO’s ‘Go for Beginners’ , although old now, would still be useful to you (you will probably have to read in English).
I know this topic is old, but I really like the speed baduk and level up series.
I think it was translated. A very very good book especially for low to middle ddk levels as there are so few books for them. (I only know the english version)
The book is mentioned here, but if it ever existed and then out of stock, it’s still hard to find more information
Note that it’s from Iwamoto Kaoru, as there is another one by a korean player, which i have no opinion on it.
Well, since this was necrothreaded and we have this book fully translated in Spanish and Catalan now and it can be downloaded for free, I’ll leave this here:
The OP seems to still be active in OGS. @legas I do not think you will need this now, but you ever read this topic again, you might find it useful to give it to friends.
An affordable alternative to Graded Go problems for Beginners are the German books with Go problems by Gunnar Dickfeld (there is not much text in the books so it doesn’t matter if you don’t know German): https://www.amazon.de/Gunnar-Dickfeld/e/B00458RUA6
As a basic and affordable series, I really like Learn to Play go by Janice Kim: Amazon.de: Janice Kim: Bücher, Hörbücher, Bibliografie
The study plan I conceived for my self is the following:
Janice Kim and Jeon Soo-hyung. Learn to Play Go. 5 vols.
Richard Bozulich. The Second Book of Go. 2nd ed.
Yilun Yang. The Fundamental Principles of Go.
Richard Bozulich and Peter Shotwell. Winning Go.
Haruyama Isamu and Nagahara Yoshiaki. Basic Techniques of Go.
Toshiro Kageyama. Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go.
Richard Bozulich. An Encyclopedia of Go Principles.
Otake Hideo. Opening Theory Made Easy.
Ishida Yoshio. All About Thickness: Understanding Moyo and Influence.
James Davies. Tesuji.
Charles Matthews and Seong-June Kim. Shape Up!
Kiyoshi Kosugi and Janes Davies. 38 Basic Josekis.
James Davies. Attack and Defense.
James Davies. Life and Death.
Antti Törmänen. Rational Endgame.
As for Go problems, I originally used Gunnar Dickfeld’s books and Speed Baduk, but now I use 101weiqi.com instead since they have good practice books that are included in the subscription.
How much time do you plan for this?
I am been working through James Davies. Life and Death and James Davies. Tesuji. I started about 18 years ago and guess I’ll be there in another 5.
Nice but a bit OT for 16-18k
Wonderful book. A few weeks if you can spend a good amount of time. A few months peacefully.
This was the first book i searched by myself each position (not the introduction) and that was well rewarded.
I’ve said elsewhere that the first half of Life and Death got me from about 9k to somewhere around 4k (I have somehow since bimbled along to 2k without really learning anything new and then plateaued), at some point I’m going to read the second half and then, watch out.
I have not seen this yet, might be helpful: Justin Teng's Personal Go Book Collection and Guide - Google Docs
I personally have Opening Theory Made Easy and Lessons in the Fundamentals of GO. I’d say Opening theory would be a good place to start.
Opening Theory is excellent.
You don’t generally win a game in the opening and “optimal” is a concept for pros, but it’s nice to at least feel like you know what you’re trying to do at the start. I really got a lot of value and confidence from it.
Not my feeling. Too many stuff not related to the opening and too simple. But ok tastes differs and it could be because i read other books before.