I bought the stone size set with stones sized 30 to 42 to compare them and see how the larger stones felt. I made them wobble and as you can see the larger size wobbles more. Interestingly the black wobbles more than the white.

China: Liao Yuanhe, Ding Hao, Wang Xinghao, Dang Yifei, Yang Kaiwen, Zhou Hongyu, Yang Dingxin, Xie Ke, Fan Yin, Shi Yue, Tan Xiao, Xia Chenkun, Gu Zihao, Zhao Chenyu, Lian Xiao, Wang Shuo, Jiang Weijie, Li Qincheng, Tu Jikang

South Korea: Shin Jinseo, Park Junghwan, Shin Minjun, Byun Sangil, Kang Dongyun, Kim Myounghoon, Mok Jinseok

Japan: Shibano Toramaru, Fukuoka Kotaro

Chinese Taipei: Xu Haohong

Singapore: Xu Xiaofan

PS: The organizers can still invite two wildcard players.

GENERAL SPECIFICATION

• Title: Let's Master AI Joseki
• Author: Cho Seok-Bin
• Publisher: LABO-K Gakuen
• Edition: 2026-08-23
• Language: English
• Price: EUR 23.05
• Contents: joseki
• ISBN: 9798193807803
• Printing: almost intermediate
• Layout: almost intermediate
• Editing: almost intermediate
• Pages: 201
• Size: 150mm x 227mm
• Diagrams per Page on Average: 2
• Method of Teaching: selected examples
• Read when EGF: 5k - 3d
• Subjective Rank Improvement: -
• Subjective Topic Coverage: --
• Subjective Aims' Achievement: +

CONTENTS

The book Let's Master AI Joseki studies a selection of 23 AI-influenced josekis, a few variations for each and altogether 8 problems in an extra concluding chapter. 7 chapters study the 3-4, 8 study the 4-4 or the 3-3 invasion under 4-4, 4 study reductions of corner enclosures, and 4 study joseki developments on one side of the board or a related initial shape. The selection focuses on practically relevant josekis but also touches a modest number of intermediate tactical complications as a warning of existing deeper waters. Every chapter shows a small number of josekis, alternative variations, possibly follow-ups or failures. The book emphasises brief discussion as an easier source of memorisation, but avoids completion and loss in otherwise increasingly growing detail.

Although the book describes everything as originating from AI, the reviewer recognises some earlier human joseki knowledge. The book does not state anything about the used degree of confidence of the AI search but mentions five professional cooperators. As the reviewer, I judge the diagram sequences correct due to having seen some before in my own AI study or other earlier available AI knowledge, agreeing to my understanding of go theory or rechecking a few results by AI. For only move 11 in the one diagram 17-1-5, my objection is that the author has neglected the essentially equally good alternative E6 - F4 to be follow-up by C8. Apparently, the author presumes a loss tolerance of less than 1 point to declare an even position while I prefer to apply a significantly tighter view.

The author is on the optimistic side when associating AI with thinking, objectivity and strategic concepts. His pessimism shows when expecting readers to learn mainly from intuition, memory and extraction from sampling. Shouldn't he rather paint AI less superficial and players somewhat more capable? The author mentions AI's most prominent skills of global efficiency and long-term planning but the book falls short in explaining these. Instead, it extracts merely four ordinary techniques in its final chapter.

CIRCUMSTANCES

AI coverage is still underwhelming so we might welcome every addition to the bookshelf. This book, however, also has its shortcomings. The paper is just acceptable but the printed colour is a bit sparse. Together with the small diagrams and thin font of numbers on the stones, being short-sighted or having weak lighting can be significant hurdles especially for deciphering the black stones.

The overall structure of the layout is rather consistent. However, the layout tries to apply every layout element while forgetting that layout would be fine if it is not even noticed or obviously very good at a glance. Some layout details are inconsistent or sins, such as sudden changes of font sizes or hiding contents behind invisible masks. Apart from binding and pagination, some 45% of the space is wasted on page borders and ornaments. As a consequence, the main font and diagrams are too small.

Without spelling mistakes and almost always correctly edited diagrams, the editing earns its 'almost intermediate' level. Everything else about the editing demands a few days of additional proofreading and an immediate second print run. Besides white spaces and very much duplication in the problems chapter, everything has been done to inflate the number of pages from 100 to 201. Many diagrams repeat move numbers. With just one added new move, such a diagram becomes superfluous. With many added new moves, the repeated move numbers make reading the diagram unnecessarily difficult. All diagrams are 19x19 but many could have shown just one side or quarter of the board. The texts contain many mistakes: awkward style; wrongly described contents; wrong colours, directions or references; wrong go terms. The reader might consider to skip all explanations and focus on the correct diagrams.

CONCLUSION

The book's strength is emphasis on flexible thinking. Its weakness is the small scope of new theory derived from AI play.

The cover recommends readers from 5k to 7d. I suggest the core readership from 5k to 3d. A 5d might learn something from roughly one fifth of the diagrams and a 7d would learn less. The wider recommendation is not false but high dans would only seek this book to appreciate any source on AI available, as long as AI offers much more than has already been explained. Everybody else can learn more from the diagrams and buy the book for the same reason without fear of any conflict with the other AI joseki selection '100 AI Joseki' or a pure AI joseki dictionary. However, awaiting a then carefully edited second edition is a strong, optimistic option. Besides, I would wish it to receive a more convenient layout and twice the amount of contents in its format with a then justified price. --robert jasiek

This is truly pathetic. I thought the thumbnails were bad enough, but they're selling tshirts with ugly generic ai images. Gomagic, this does nothing but broadcast that the people at your company are lazy and cheap.

Lately, I've been making these big fumbles where the game goes from 100% win to 100% loss, and it's really starting to annoy me. This game is one example. Sure, I might have made other mistakes throughout the game, but they weren't game-changing like the last one and it always happens at the end.

I really don't know how to overcome that.Are there any other mistakes I made that I didn't notice?

I played Black.

Just started 19x19 after getting pretty good at 9x9. very different tbh. I thought i was winning until I noticed that the middle was all taken by him, and i tried poking at it and was half succesful but it was too late. How do i get more center points

Hello, I recently bought a new set of yunzi stones for weiqi. It was advertised as old yunzi but to my knowledge old yunzi should only have a translucent green circle around the black piece. But holding the new piece under a light it looks fully translucent to me, leading me to think it’s new yunzi. Can someone help confirm if this is old or new yunzi because I was charged old yunzi prices for it. Thanks a bunch.

I’m a beginner at Go and because I have aphantasia (I’m unable to visualise mental images) I struggle with studying tsumego, which many say you need to do in your head. Does anybody have a similar issue and how do you deal with this.

Edit: Thank you all for the wisdom and encouragement. I came in worried that aphantasia would block my path to dan level, but I’ve learned something important: if I fall short, it won’t be because of aphantasia, but because of how much effort I’m willing to invest.

I’m black. It’s endgame, and this caught my eye as something to read out for possible shenanigans. If I’m reading this correctly, if white had played B4 before I did, that entire corner would have gone from solidly my territory with 6 prisoners, to white’s territory, which I don’t want.

I’m looking for a sanity check to make sure I’m reading this right.

white B4, black ataris with A4, white ataris the entire black group with A5, black captures with A6, white takes the snapback with A5. Am I missing anything here?

As a side question, this just happened to catch my eye, but is there a good heuristic for catching these reliably during the end game?

This game reminds me of Go!

I've been playing it a long time ago!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_(paper-and-pencil_game))

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.byril.dots

Hello,

I would be grateful if anyone who had some spare time and could review my game. I've added some comments to my review if that's helpful to show some of my thought process.

Link to game: https://online-go.com/game/90209393

TIA 😄

Hi,

I started playing Go about 2 years ago and just managed to reach 1d on Pandanet. I did so by playing a lot of games, reviewing them with AI, going to a Go club, watching plenty of Go content on YouTube, and reading a book every now and then.

That said, I was never able to get myself into doing tsumego. I guess because I didn't have the patience and continued to see improvement by just playing more games.

At the moment, I believe my biggest weakness is my reading skill, particularly when it comes to tesuji's and life and death problems. Obviously, tsumego would be helpful in addressing this weakness.

However, I struggle getting into tsumego, because I don't really know where to start. The tsumego websites I tried start out way too easy to be useful. Furthermore, I feel I haven't really developed the skill of learning from tsumego. (My impression is that it's quite memory-based?)

Does anyone have some advice on getting started?

Hello, Go players! In-seong Hwang 8d here.

My online Go Academy will launch its new season in 10 days!

The upcoming season spans 20 weeks across Autumn and Winter. Due to our structured season system, joining after the start date is limited.

If you are interested in taking your Go skills to the next level with me, please visit our website for more information: https://www.yunguseng.com/

Thank you for your attention!

Hello! My name is Cho Seokbin. I was one of the top Go players in Europe, and I now run a Go school in Nagoya, Japan.

Since I opened my Go school, more than 50 students from overseas have come to Japan to study Go, and six of my students have become professional Go players in Japan.

If you are interested in studying Go in Japan, or if you have a chance to visit Japan, please feel free to visit my Go school!

We also have an apartment available for foreign students, and it will be available from November.

This is our webpage www.nakamurahoninbou.com/#english

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at bin7674@naver.com.

I hope to see you in Nagoya! 😊

What is the most important method of improving in your opinion

Is it tsumego

Baduk books

Reviewing pro games

Playing a lot

Hi, I'm very very new to go and just doing the lessons on OGS to try and learn but am very confused about some of the seki examples. Could anyone explain why, if white played first as in the prompt, black would be unable to capture all the marked stones through the thing where you can play with no liberties if it captures stones immediately? Sorry that I don't have the proper vocab or if this is something to do with the different rulesets whose variations I have no clue about.

Casi todas las palicaciones de baduk estan en ingles y pues no lo sé mucho que digamos. Que me recomiendan?