Go Reviews

Making Good Shape
By Rob van Zeijst and Richard Bozulich
Published by Kiseido
Reviewed by Frank Brown, 11k

    Everybody talks about shape but until now, there hasn't been a book focused specifically on the subject.  I learned to play go over ten years ago, but never took lessons from a professional and consequently picked up some bad habits.  I've been struggling to improve beyond the double-digit kyu level forever.  It's easy to recognize that a dense clump of eyeless stones is bad shape, but harder to explain the qualities which give stones good shape.  The first two chapters explain the principles of good shape and bad, and the third chapter (approximately two thirds of the book) consists of 245 illustrative problems. The fourth and final chapter provides sample games for study. Finicky readers may find the typographic errors sprinkled throughout (including the author's misspelled name on the front cover) distracting, along with random transpositions of black and white in the text but the basic content is good and the errors will undoubtedly be cleaned up in the next printing.