I have been trying to figure out what a strategic reading plan to develop in Go would be. From looking at various books and reviews, the following seems to be a strategic curriculum for self-study in Go:
Stage 1:
K. Sung Rae. Speed Baduk, vols. 4-6.
I. Haruyama/Y. Nagahara. Basic Techinques of Go.
T. Kageyama. Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go.
Y. Yang. The Fundamental Principles of Go.
G. Dickfeld, Black to Play! [Schwarz am Zug]. 20-15 Kyo
G. Dickfeld, Black to Play! [Schwarz am Zug]. 15-10 Kyo
Stage 2:
K. Sung Rae. Speed Baduk, vols. 7-9.
H. Otake. Opening Theory Made Easy.
A. Ishida. Attack and Defense.
G. Dickfeld, Black to Play! [Schwarz am Zug]. 10-5 Kyo
Y. Kano. Graded Go Problems for Beginners, vol. 3.
Stage 3:
K. Sung Rae. Speed Baduk, vols. 10-12.
G. Dickfeld, Black to Play! [Schwarz am Zug]. 5-1 Kyo
Y. Kano. Graded Go Problems for Beginners, vol. 4.
I am not aware of most of those books so I cannot really place it on stage 2 or stage 3, but imho you should add “The direction of Play” by Takeo Kajiwara somewhere on that list. Very useful book.
Yilun Yang’s book is good, and the first chapters are appropriate for stage 1, but becomes difficult to follow when he talks about joseki if you don’t know any josekis, and the invasion sequences at the end of the book are pretty complicated, so before reading the difficult chapters I would recommend to read “Attack and Defense”.
My idea is that stage 1 is ca. 20-10 kyo; stage 2 is ca. 10-5 kyo; and stage 3 is ca. 5-1 kyo although the literature in each level is not exactly adapted to the same stage, but psychologically I feel it is better not to have too much literature assigned to a single stage (but that is how I tick).
I have seen more people recommend A. Ishida. Attack and Defense as a fundamental text so perhaps both Opening Theory and Attack and Defense should be studied before Yang.
I acquired the books of Gunnar Dickfeld for my youth club. From what I’ve seen they are quite nice little puzzles and appropriate for their level. Not much theory, but thats okay for tesuji/tsumego books. And they are available in Dutch, which is a big plus for me.
R. Bozulich/P. Shotwell. Winning Go: Successful Moves from the Opening to the Endgame.
Unlike most Go books it has a reasonable price and since Bozulich has edited so many different translations of Japanese Go books, it might contain a summary of insights from all the books he has previously edited and written.
I would put all Vol. of Graded Go Problems for Beginners in Stage 1.
Excellent books, the best ones for Stage 1 in my opinion.
And beware: Basic techniques is not strictly a beginner book. It is more of an overview. It was one of my first books too, but in those days there were not much books in English or German. You can read it in Stage 1, but should read it again in the other stages. If you know everything in this book by heart and can use it in your games you are about 1 Dan.
I tried to work on GGPFB vol 3 when I was about 15k and I found it a bit hard. The life and death problems at the beginning of the book were doable but the ones at the end were more difficult, and I had no clue on the middle game problems because I hadn’t learnt basic tesujis.
So I think GGPFB vol 3 and 4 are good for stage 2 as well, and tesujis should be studied at about the same time. Anyway working on these books just once is not enough, I probably solved these problems 3-4 times.
Concerning Haruyama/Nagahara and Kageyama, I think that one can read them at an early stage because there are important formulations of guiding principles although one should probably reread them at a later stage when one has played a lot of games since then one will be able to understand what one did not understand the first time one read them (I am currently rereading them). Haruyama/Nagahara, Kageyama, and GGPFB3 were the first Go books I ever read when I started playing Go some 20 years ago although for various reasons I have almonst not had the time or opportunity to play any Go the last 10 years so now I am trying to get back to the game and develop further.
