Go Reviews

Counting Liberties and Winning Capturing Races
by Richard Hunter
Slate & Shell 2003
231pp.
reviewed by Richard Dolen
May 24, 2004

       If you do not recognize the sequence of numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 12, 17, or cannot use them to determine whether your stones are dead or alive, you need this book. Just as the rules of go lead to the principle of "two eyes," they lead to the principles of fighting between groups without two eyes. Based on material originally published in "The British Go Journal" and "The Second Book of Go," this book classifies fights into basic types. For each type, it develops the principles by means of fully worked examples, general illustrations and problems, then gives a summary. Another section on the complications produced by ko gives counter examples for simplistic proverbs, and systematizes the knowledge it would take hundreds of games to acquire. The monograph on the zoology of the "L Group" is an interesting supplement.
       A classic principle is that "if the situation could result in a seki, count a second time with the roles of defender and attacker reversed." Hunter loses some clarity by omitting this from the exposition, and proceeding immediately to the one-count method which identifies one side as the "favorite."

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