As i said in a previous post, i`m focussing on L&D problems at the moment, reading L&D by James Davies and try to spent my „go time“ mainly for „Live and Death“  practice/study (as contrasted with study of „tesuji“).

But, a few weaks ago i was reading about the „Segoe Tesuji Dictionary“ (link to SL) maybe you have heard about that. I was buying this, but not because i felt the need to study it right now, but i thought there is maybe the danger that even the Chinese version will get out of print soon. I`m definetly not a expert on this go book market things, but i knew that the japanese version is allready out of print and very hard to get. So i ordered it at Yutopian  to have it in my bookshelf and be sure to be able to pick it up when the right time comes… Today the books arrived and i will now write a very short review, consisting mainly of pictures. This will be maybe helpfull for thoose of you thinking about ordering this book as well or just thinking about ordering Chinsese or Japanese or Korean language go books in general.

It was not very easy to get my books, because Yutiopian somehow did not had a invoice on the outside for the custom office, and so they kept the books and i had to drive to the custom house today to get them, but they were very friendly and i had not to pay any aditional money. Next time i will write a short note to Yutopian so that this will not happen again.
Another thing, somebody at 19×19 (just search for „Segoe Tesuji Dictionary“ you will find some interesting discussions) mentioned that the price was higher than expected, i had the some experience, somehow the webstite of Yutopian is not very modern, and you can`t see your shipping costs calculated automaticly, but when i got a confirmation request via email i was order them anyway 🙂

So… the books come with a nice paper with some help to understand some chinese… i did not tryed yet to somehow get a glimpse what the description next to the problems is saying… i don`t really feel the need to do anyway. I think to have the diagramm, the solution and a way to figure out if it is blacks or whites turn is enough for me here.

The book has 3 different levels „A“ problems are really hard, „B“ are high single digit kyu/low dan (i think i read that at 19×19) and „C“ are of kyu level.

What a really like very much about the book: all problems are shown on a complete side of a 19×19 board … for example if you look at the book „501 tesuji problems“ the problems are shown in a much smaller area… here in this book you have a real game feeling because of the size of the board…

I was able to solve the first two problems labled „C“ and this gives me the impression that the category „c“ is not yet too difficult for me. Before i ordered i was thinking that the whole book is way over my actual level (~KGs 5 kyu) and as i allready mentioned i just ordered it to not have the problem to get it when it maybe out of print in a few years.
Yes, that`s my review, 3 very nice books. I will try to solve at least one or two „C“ problems every day 🙂
Here: http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&p=87958#p87958 at 19×19 you find a interesting post about the question how to study this books(s).

First „C“ Level Problem Can you solve it? Black to play

Second „C“ Level Problem White to play