The Second Book of Go: What you need to know after you've learned the rules

I enjoyed studying this book, but I must point out that this is the "revised edition" (2018), and NOT the "second edition" (1998).Two excellent chapters from the second edition, "Counting Liberties" and "How to Win Capturing Races", have been removed from the 2018 edition. On the other hand, some chapters have been considerably expanded, most notably the ones about "Life and Death" and "Good and Bad Shape".In the end, I think both editions are good books, but I was frustrated about the two removed chapters (which several second edition reviews pointed out as being particularly good) and ended up buying a used second edition copy. Part of my rating reflects my frustration about changing book contents - if I set this aside, the current edition is still a pretty good introductory go book which would be worth 4 stars.

I've been playing very casually over the last 6 months or so. I've read  Go: A Complete Introduction to the Game , Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Vol. 1: Introductory Problems, 30 Kyu to 25 Kyu , and  Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Vol. 2: Elementary Problems, 25 Kyu to 20 Kyu . While these books were interesting and of some value "The Second Book of Go" opened up the game to me. I now have a good basic understanding of what is going on and can generally follow online videos without wondering what just happened. My reading skills have vastly improved and I can't wait to play some real games with my new knowledge.That said, this book requires from perseverance. If you are a beginner you will not be able to just skim through this and absorb all of the material. Don't let yourself get bogged down in the details the first time through. I suspect it will take most players a lot of time to understand the concepts but everything you need is in the text and diagrams. Study it until it until you understand. It may be helpful to play out the diagrams on a real board if you have a hard time visualizing. As others have mentioned it seems certain topics have been given more attention than others. Capturing races in particular has been broken into two chapters and is an in depth treatment. Don't be discouraged if you don't get everything on your first pass. Play some games and come back. Most of all, keep having fun. It is a game.

This book provides a comprehensive survey of the basic concepts of go for the advanced beginner: openings, handicap strategy, josekis, attacking, tesuji, life and death, capturing races, good shape, endgame, and ko fighting. The book covered these topics in greatly varying lengths. It treats capturing races in two chapters--probably exhausting the subject--while ko fighting only gets five pages. I had trouble following some of the examples; I think the author expected more expertise from the reader and therefore left much unsaid. I enjoyed that many of the chapters suggest books for further study, a welcome guide to the bewildering number of available go books.Despite its title, I found it an excellent third book, and it definitely required more than a simple knowledge of the rules, despite its subtitle. I'll be digesting the contents of this book for quite a while.

One of the essential books for learning to play well, also good for stronger players to go back and review!

What I needed to progress. I have two copies now, which I share with others in my club. Well written, with examples that make ideas clear. Not too hard, but begins an understanding of this great game.

On the upside, this book takes you logically through the stages of a game of Go from the opening, through josekis, attacking, life-and-death, and finally the endgame. The writer clearly has a great understanding of Go. On the downside, the book gives lots of sequences (josekis) of up to 20 moves with minimal explanations; the reader is presumably supposed to memorize the moves. This is quite a heavy demand to put on novices who are only on their second book about this complex game. New players might want to consider going through Janice Kim's excellently written "Learn to Play Go" books and then come back to this one.

An old standard; valuable to share with advanced beginners.

I think this book fits its title very well indeed - its a great little book. I found the chapter on counting liberties to be invaluable, along with several other insights that the book has scattered throughout. All in all an excellent second book!

A useful primer on "what to do next" setting out a lot of basic principles as a foundation for getting better. A good book to follow on after, e.g.,  Go for Beginners  and read before  Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go (Beginner and Elementary Go Books) .It's not bad for just reminding you not to be stupid, too. Go for BeginnersLessons in the Fundamentals of Go (Beginner and Elementary Go Books)

The front design is very nice