Attack and Defense, by Ishida Akira and James Davies. Volume 5 of the Elementary Go Series. Ishi G14/Kiseido K14; 1980.

This book is an introduction to the middle game. Its chapters are on Territory and Pawer, Attacking Strategy, Attacking Moves, Defense, Forcing Moves, Inducing Moves, Reducing and Invading Large Frameworks, Invasions into Three-Space Extensions, Ko Fights, and Problems. So it gives an introduction to all of the things that you should think about in the middle game.

I was a lot less confused about the middle game after reading this book than before. I still wasn't very good at it, but at least I had a framework to think about my moves. I've found this a useful one to come back to, as well - each time I read it, I think I understand the middle game, then I play some more, slowly get more and more confused about the middle game, at which point I go back and read this book again, and learn something new that I didn't understand the last time.

Dan Schmidt (NNGS 5k*) says:

This is possibly my favorite go book. It's responsible for almost everything I know about strategy. There's plenty in it I don't totally get yet, but it should be useful in some way even to a 15k player. I get something new out of it every time I read it.

david carlton <carlton@bactrian.org>

Last modified: Sun Aug 10 20:50:01 PDT 2003