Graded Go Problems for Beginners by Yoshinori Kano

Graded Go Problems for Beginners by Yoshinori Kano

This is the fourth and final volume of the series Graded Go Problems for Beginners and is aimed at players 10-kyu or stronger. The problems here are more difficult than the ones in Volume Three and, if your are able to solve problems of the same difficulty during your own games, your strength would be close to 1-kyu.

The answers to many of these problems are a bit terse, but we are assuming that many of the elementary tactics covered in the first three volumes have been mastered by the reader. One reason for the brevity of the answers is to encourage the readers to think out all of the other possible variations and to assure themselves that the solutions presented do lead to the desired result. The reader should attempt to 'refute' the correct answer until he knows beyond a doubt that the correct answer does in fact work. By pondering each problem in this way, the reader will develop an instinct for finding the winning move in his games.

Yoshinori Kano was born in Kyoto on April 14, 1928, and died on May 2, 1999. At the age of nine, he moved to Tokyo and became a disciple of Suzuki Hideko 5-dan. In 1943, he was promoted to 1-dan, and in 1968, he was promoted to 9-dan. He won the Young Professional's Championship in 1948, the Oteai's top section in 1955, and the 5th Prime Minister's Cup in 1961. He was a member of the Honinbo leagues 14th, 20th, 25th, and 26th.

He traveled to Austria and Russia in 1975, and then to China in 1979 with a squad of high school go players for a good will match. He graduated from Tokyo University's Japanese Literature Department, making him one of the few professional go players to have attended university.