Watching a lecture to get an overview is not a bad thing, like when you attend a lecture at university, but then you need to do your homework, otherwise you won’t remember anything.
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This mention is what I am replying to. Most AI moves are inscrutable to me, which is why I do not really use it.
I am not in favour of the opinion that the old books and moves/ideas are obsolete for our level. They are for the pros and maybe for the very high dan players, since they are the pioneers of pushing the game to new levels, but most of us would probably consider it a miracle and a high achievement if we somehow managed to play moves that were of “pro-quality” back in the seventies.
Be that as it may, most of the books of that time that I’ve come across, have that bad habit of presenting a diagram in page X, but having the corresponding text to page X+1 which is sometimes on the next page, but can easily be on the back of the page you are on, so you go flip-forwards flip-backwards flip-forwards to just read the diagram progression along with the explanation. I’ve even seen a couple of rare X+2 pages which was quite the stretch.
That is not a complaint about the content in terms of Go knowledge/value, but the arrangement of the content itself.
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I agree, I had a few astonishment at times about how the books were formated but that never deterred me to read them to the end.
I had more concerns about the lack of books aiming the ddk level, as most were more aimed to SDK (and a few to dan). I guess that today’s products (video and books) have now filled that gap.
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The reason why diagrams are not always on the same page is that editors wanted to save paper. Like in this book (Attack and Defense)
if they wanted to put the explanations on the same page as the diagram, they should have put the explanations for dia. 10 and 11 on page 45, and diagrams 12 and 13 + explanations on page 46.
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I am not sure that they save paper with those gaps there:
It is just a different typesetting convention. For example, one of those decisions is that “all diagrams in the whole book need to have the same scaling and that is non-negotiable”.
That is very hard to balance, which is why they often had to sacrifice continuity to achieve that prime directive.
In my case I set the “diagram and explantion will be in the same page” as non-negotiable and then I went for the convention that all the diagrams in the same page need to have the same scaling, unless it is not possible." (that is after chapter 2, where I took that decision 
)
Alternatively they could have moved around things, filled more space and kept the explantions of the diagrams in the same pages with the diagrams:
I do not have the typesetting file for those pages, I just moved them around crudely in photoshop, as an example.
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Can I congratulate you on your book. You have definitely done the wold a great service.
And you have done a lot of work to get it to were it is.
It is very readable and deserves a thorough and study.
What I really need is a byte size chunks that could be explained in a 10 minute video and then a way to play it out 3 or 4 times with someone to practice it. I find I read bits of go books but they seem fine at the time but dont really sink in. The Life and Death book worked for me (James Davies)- but drilling on Tsumego Hero was a game changer and embedded the techniques, there is nothing for similar for attack and defence.
You mention Nick Sibicky - I tried a few of his talks (they are quite long) and for me anyway he covers too many idea’s and variations in one go. And the main problem is that there is no graduated list of Nick Sibicky talks that says try these 20 talks in this order. So you are left with sampling your way through his video’s by the time your realise the talk is not going to help you have invested 10 minutes.
Your attack and defence chapter explains a technique of building a wall and inviting an invasion and then basically attacking the base of the inavsion or reducing it. This is the bit that I am struggling with most. To be honest yours is the first explanation I have come across. I have not read ‘Attack and Defense’ (maybe it is covered in there).
I’m just a 21k player trying to become a consistant 18k player and not being able to figure out what it is that an 18K player understands that I dont.
It is really hard to practice Attack and Defence in an online game as the right conditions may not arise to practice what is in the books (or one may not see them arise) I will need to go over your explanation a number of times. If only there was some easy way to setup a game situation and then be able to play it out against AI that was rated just a bit further on than me. This is what GO really needs and I dont think anyone has done that yet.
I think the book would be even better if there were shorter chapters.
I will probably make a donation at some point. Thank you for letting me know about it.
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That’s more and less what happens then playing a 18k human.
Go ask a 18k human player directly. Like review with him the game you just play with.
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I’ve been writing a 19x19 FOR BEGINNERS series here on OGS. In Part 5, I tried to tackle some of these questions.
The answers are complex and multi-faceted - because so much depends on the skill level of the players involved. However, I tried to get down to basics and show that all these complexities are an outgrowth of the underlying efficiencies which shape the dynamic of the whole-board game.
After describing the underlying mechanics and the goals at each stage of the game, I tried to demonstrate that through 3 different games at different levels:
Beginner game: here two players (22 kyu / 24 kyu) focus more on contact fighting, and (mostly) ignore the underlying efficiencies of the game. However, one reaps the benefits of direction of play and efficiencies, while the other gets pushed into the middle.
Intermediate game: This is a peaceful game of GnuGo vs GnuGo - rather than fighting to capture, both opponents make the most of the underlying efficiencies inherent in the game to convert the potential gained in the Opening into decent moyos in Early Midgame.
Advanced game: This is a game between two 9 dan pros. Much like the beginner game, the contact fighting starts early. However, these two pros show that they know when to focus on local fights, and when to zoom out and prioritize whole-board play. I use the metaphor of Red Light / Green Light to show readers when to focus on protecting local groups, and when to zoom out and return to whole-board stage-of-the-game priorities.
Hopefully this set of skills will help you develop your own ways of transitioning from the Opening to Early Midgame. Good luck
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This looks great. Do you have a pdf version, it is hard to read these things scrolling on a laptop or phone
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Thanks for the compliment!
Sorry, no PDF version available.
If you can, I recommend reading this on a computer or a laptop. For all 3 example games, my idea was that you would have the game in one browser window, and then be able to alt-tab between the article and the game demo board.
So move the game a few moves ahead, and then read the commentary - rinse / repeat. Use the ideas in the article to gain a new set of eyes that allow you to see the interplay of the stones in a different way - learn to see where the next important areas on the board will be as the game progresses through the different stages, etc.
Good luck.
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Each person learns differently and this is the biggest challenge on teaching and promoting Go. Others learn better by playing, others by reading, others by watching video, others via Apps, others by tutor and so forth…
In this case:
A way to make the content of the book “stick” is to try to play the examples of book on a real board. I find that this helps me immensely.
You are quite correct, this is the main issue of that channel, but of video format in general.
Another issue, if you watch dwyrin for example, is that sometimes they assume that you’ve watched some previous content or that you are of sufficient level to understand what happens fully. e.g. sometimes they will “and now this group is dead”, but not explain how.
This is what I found most difficult when trying to learn myself.
There is a trick for that. It is called playing with people that are 15k. 
This is, in fact, how I mostly managed to improve at Go.
a) Read some interesting books (the Direction of Play is first on that list)
b) Constantly challenging people above my ranks in the DGS ladder. That meant slow, correspondence games, where I could try a lot of moves in the SGF (of the analysis tool, if you do this in OGS) before deciding on a move.
All those players slowly showed me what it is that they knew/understood, but I didn’t.
I played some moves.
They countered them.
I saw the mistake and practically learned what was wrong in that move.
Next time I saw that move, I tried to apply what I learned and, hopefully it either worked OR I learned of a different issue of that idea.
Of course, it goes without saying that you will lose most of those games, but if gear yourself towards the “fun of learning and playing” instead of “the fun of winning”, then the result doesn’t really matter.
But even in that regard, think this:
Even if you lose 10 games to much higher ranked opponents, you will lose tiny amounts of ranking.
But when you finally win one of those games, you will gain back all your loses and even double than that.
Proof:
Defeats all over the place, but the few wins, counter that result
So, do not have rank anxiety and challenge better people. That is the best way to get those “real board examples” that you want to test out.
Here are two games that might help you.
Here is one of my first ranked games when I had just learned how to play and brassly declared myself 12k out of the door:
It is full of mistakes, from both players. If you’d like I can review it for you, but first please try to go through it and find some mistakes on your own, so that you can see what you think of the moves.
And here is one of my usual defeats, around 10k. Fun fact, I have never won against this opponent. I think I am at 0 wins and 18 defeats against him, even now. (he later rose up to 3 dan!)
Have a look at them and let me know your thoughts. Try to find “three wrong moves” in each game, for example.
I started to write it thinking that it will be 60-70 pages because “I do not know much”. Turns out that I had to stop at 200 pages and not cover even a quarter of the things that I could have talked about.
It is the problem of having to explain something. In our minds it might be simple and, after some time even seem self-evident, but when forced to explain it to someone that needs to understand it from the ground up and thoroughly, then you have to explain the connection and thought behind each move and at that point you realise that things start to escalate fast.
I have a lot of material for a second book, but I lack the time to do it… for now.
P.S.
You might also find this ongoing “teaching” game, interesting:
If you’d like we can play a correspondence game as well. Let me know and I can send you an invitation.
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Hi Jeth - I have sent a donation on PayPal and sent you a friend request.
And I would be happy to do a correspondence game.
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Thank you! I really appreciate it
I’ve sent you a challenge with -95.5 komi. It is better for the board to be empty so that all the tactics you try to employ will apply to a fair match against someone closer to your ranking.
Enjoy!
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I’ve become somewhat curious about this, so I looked at the Clossi Basic flowchart.
Seems like the move 42 O6 does follow the flow chart - since there are no weaknesses (single stone doesn’t count imo, because it can easily be sacrificed), the biggest move is at the largest framework - and invading is one of the options.