All about Thickness, by Ishida Yoshio. Ishi G34; 1990.

This is a book about thickness, and it's completely different from any other go book published in English. It consists of 45 Examples; each Example has two pages, each consisting of a big diagram illustrating the situation at hand, with a few words written in red on the diagram pointing out various aspects and with areas of influence shaded in on the board. There are then two more pages with a diagram taking up most of the page but with some actual text at the bottom of the page, and the diagrams don't have the snazzy color and shading.

Depending on the sort of person you are, that may sound bad or good. It works for me, and I think that that sort of presentation works particularly well with a book about thickness, since thickness is something that demands a visceral understanding that is hard to convey with words, so you really have to show people how to get a feel for thickness by using a physical board and stones or by using a diagram, and the large colorful diagrams really do have more of an impact than normal diagrams would.

At the end of the book, there's also a list of 40 proverbs involving thickness, with a line or two of explanation of each. And there's even an index. This book was published in both hardcover and softcover; the hardcover version is called G34H.

david carlton <carlton@bactrian.org>

Last modified: Sun Aug 10 20:52:02 PDT 2003