Book Review: Kage's Secret Chronicles of Handicap Go

Overall Rating: 8 / 10 Ponnuki

Basic Information

• Title: Kage’s Secret Chronicles of Handicap Go
• Author: Toshiro Kageyama, 6-dan (translated by James Davies)
• Publisher: The Ishi Press, Inc.
• Publication Date: October 1975
• Page Length: 204 pages

Synopsis

• An entertaining book from Kageyama that illustrates handicap go concepts through a conversational style of writing.
• Does not explain handicap go from a traditional textbook like style.
• Appropriate for 5 kyu and stronger.
• Recommended for serious players who already have a foundation on handicap go.

What I Expected

• A format similar to Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go except for handicap go.
• To gain a better understanding of how handicap go should be played from both White and Black’s perspective.
• A thorough explanation of different concepts in handicap go.

What You Can Expect

• The format of the book consists more of Kageyama’s conversations during handicap games and some of his thoughts on the position at hand.
• Tidbits of wisdom and advice are hidden among the conversation, but it is not as apparent as one would see from a textbook style book.
• Multiple choice questions about where the reader thinks the player in question should play next along with explanations as to why each answer is wrong or right.

My Thoughts as a 5 Kyu

Although this book was not quite what I expected, this book has two shining qualities:

1. Kageyama’s entertaining writing and thoughts.
2. The multiple choice questions embedded throughout the games.
   To no one’s surprise, Kageyama’s writing continues to entertain and provide a very easy read for just about anyone who understands go terminology. The only unfortunate aspect is that the book is not structured in a topic format similar to Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go. If it was, this book would probably be another the holy grail of handicap go information.

For the multiple choice questions, even though some might view the questions as a sort of tsumego, the questions felt a lot more like a teacher asking the student where he/she would play and then explaining why each option is better or worse than the others. And to be honest, now that I’ve been exposed to this style of question, I wish that other tsumego books would follow a similar format since it makes each learning point much more organic and easier to understand.

Finally, since this book is rather difficult to find, I would advise that you not spend a lot of money trying to obtain it unless you are a collector of some sorts. It’s a great book to have in your collection, but the content is not so earth shattering that you absolutely need to have this book in order to further your understanding of handicap go.

Note: As some of you might have noticed, the appropriate rank is higher than normal. The reason for this is because the conversation writing style yields a rather high level and abstract discussion of the game that most beginner players would probably find bewildering. And since the last thing I want is for you to spend your limited time on something you’ll find difficult to understand, I chose to recommend it at a higher rank then normal.

Table of Content

1. Introduction

2. Five-Stone Game

   1.  Game 1 - Koichi Yokoyhama, 5-dan (White) v. Toshiro Kageyama, 6-dan (Black)
   2.  Game 2 - Koichi Yokoyhama, 5-dan (White) v. Toshiro Kageyama, 6-dan (Black)
   3.  Game 3 - Koichi Yokoyhama, 5-dan (White) v. Kenji Nakano, 3-dan (amateur) (Black)
   

3. Four-Stone Games

   1.  Game 1 - Toshiro Kageyama, 6-dan (White) v. Koichi Yokohama, 5-dan (Black)
   2.  Common Sense Classroom
   3.  Game 2 - Toshiro Kageyama, 6-dan (White) v. Koichi Yokohama, 5-dan (Black)
   4.  Game 3 - Koichi Yokoyhama, 5-dan (White) v. Yoshio Suzuki, 4-dan (amateur) (Black)
   

4. Three-Stone Games

   1.  Game 1 - Toshiro Kageyama, 6-dan (White) v. Koichi Yokohama, 5-dan (Black)
   2.  Game 2 - Koichi Yokoyhama, 5-dan (White) v. Bin Suzuki, 5-dan (amateur) (Black)
   

5. Two-Stone Game

   1.  Game 1 - Koichi Yokoyhama, 5-dan (White) v. Toshiro Kageyama, 6-dan (Black)
   

Recommended Vendors:

1. Out of Print

Last updated June 5th, 2013