New Book: Unusual Opening Patterns and Techniques through the Eyes of AI

Announcements
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Weird and Wonderful, Volume 2: Unusual Opening Patterns and Techniques through the Eyes of AI

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I am proud to announce the release of my new go book, volume 2 of the Weird and Wonderful series. This book is the sequel to the first volume, titled Extraordinary Moves by Professional Go Players (to read about volume 1 on Sensei’s Library, click here).
Where volume 1 was devoted to human creativity and ingenuity, volume 2 mainly focuses on AI analysis, specifically the assessment of unconventional joseki and sequences of opening moves that could best be described as techniques. The book brings together both established and innovative ideas, tested against the go program KataGo. Some of these patterns have been debunked by AI, while others have survived the test of time and are now confirmed as sound. Several chapters also include moves that were introduced by AI, or were known before AI but not widespread and have now been popularized.

Table of contents

  • Sunjang Baduk
  • An Alternative Atari
  • A Trick Move Against the Sanrensei Opening
  • The Forbidden Hane
  • Plunging into the Deep
  • A Mesmerizing Miai Invasion
  • A Mesmerizing Miai Invasion II
  • Tickling the Underbelly
  • AI’s Submarine Pincer
  • Peeking Around the Corner
  • Punishing a Classic Overplay
  • A Rare Follow-Up to a Common Joseki
  • How to Trap a Crawler
  • Feeding the Tiger on the First Line
  • The Gorilla Jump
  • A Technique to Avoid Confinement
  • Reevaluating a Sabaki Technique
  • Nothing Is What It Seems

Where to get it?

Weird and Wonderful 2 is available as a SmartGo ebook at https://gobooks.com.
Physical copies can be purchases through the website of Kiseido (click here) or through Kiseido’s Amazon store (click here).

For go players in Europe, it might be cheaper to get the book through Kiseido’s European distributor, chess & go shop Het Paard in Amsterdam: click here.

I worked on this book on and off for about three years, and I’m very curious what you all think about it. Please don’t hesitate to send me a message!

Best regards,
Kim ‘Murugandi’ Ouweleen

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That seems very nice! I enjoy unusual openings a lot, so I am definitely interested in this. :slight_smile:
I do have a backlog of 10+ Go books that I have bought and not read yet though, so I bookmarked your announcement and I will buy a physical copy, as soon as I re-start my studying.

Thank you for making this book!

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Thank you, Jeth!

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If this book has a deep understanding of how AI really thinks, is it a complete game or is it another story that hasn’t been released yet because I’m happy to tell that professionals build AI or that AI explains itself

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Hi Yahel, thanks for taking the time to comment. I’m not sure if I fully understand your question, but if you’re asking about the added value of the book compared to using an AI go tool yourself, I’d put it this way: the book organizes and compares analyses of specific joseki, openings and trick plays, highlighting patterns, similarities and differences that might not be obvious when reviewing games on your own. It’s essentially a collection of mini-studies, with emphasis on moves that are unusual and could inspire you or surprise your opponents. The benefit of the book is that it condenses many hours of exploration into clearer, hopefully more universal insights – so you don’t have to do all that research yourself.
The book doesn’t try to claim how AI ‘thinks’, but it does help interpret what its choices can teach us as go players.

Hope that makes sense. Best, Kim

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This answers my question, thank you. I would be happy if there was a good book or software for AI that could speak in English or any other language that would make it possible to understand what AI Go is and how to play it more and more accurately.

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