Segoe Tesuji Dictionary
reviewed by Dr. Fumitaka Hayashi

Although more and more English-language go books are published each year, the numbers of English language go texts still pale in comparison to the numbers of such texts in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.
One classic text which is not available in English is the Segoe Tesuji Dictionary. Written by Segoe Kensaku, and co-written by Go Seigen (who was a student of Segoe at the beginning of his career), it is currently published in three volumes. The Segoe Tesuji Dictionary is arranged like a tsumego collection. There are 25 sections spread over the three volumes, each dealing with a particular type of tesuji (such as hane, oki, oiotoshi, etc.) that is critical in the solution of the problems presented. Each problem is accompanied by a short text (in Japanese of course) that briefly describes the problem and a hint about the correct solution. Each diagram shows the problem arranged on one-half of a go board. The correct solutions are located in the second half of each book, and again each solution is accompanied by a short paragraph of explanation. The problems are categorized as 'A', 'B', or 'C', denoting the difficulty of the problem. 'A' problems often have solutions that span multiple diagrams. To facilitate reading the questions and the answers, the book has not only one, but two bookmark ribbons that are frequently bound into the spine of Japanese books.

My own Japanese reading ability is limited, but I have no problem deciphering the meaning of much of the text. The format of this book is such that it is possible to learn from the problems themselves without necessarily being able to read the text. A few minutes of browsing should familiarize the reader with the kanji for 'white first' and 'black first'. Each section face page includes two diagrams demonstrating the type of tesuji highlighted in the section, so you don't have to know how to read Japanese to know the contents of each section. These factors make the Segoe Tesuji Dictionary somewhat more useful to non-Japanese readers compared to another standard Japanese tesuji reference, the Fujisawa Tesuji Dictionary. In the Fusijsawa Dictionary, much of the content is in the form of explanatory text accompanying the diagrams. Not understanding the text seems to me to lose more of the content of the Fujisawa work compared to the Segoe work.
I highly recommend the Segoe Tesuji Dictionary, even if you do not read any Japanese. ISBN numbers: Vol.1 4-416-70300-7; Vol.2 4-416-70301-5; Vol.3 4-416-70302-3

Back to Reviews