Nie Weiping on Go: The Art of Positional Judgment

by Sidney Yuan, Nie Weiping

English (translation)
Original Chinese

Genres: Go

197 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1995

Reviews

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book has a U.S. copyright of 1995, it clearly was written much earlier. The almost 30-page introduction is dated 1979, which seems much more like it, as all of the games included were played between 1974 and 1979.

I got a kick out of reading the introduction, which chronicles Nie's progress as a go player from when he was a child up to when he achieved his lifelong ambition, beating Japanese 9-Dan professionals "for the glory of China". This was a big deal since of course the game was invented in China.

Nie is a top notch player and his reviews reflect the judgements of a master. Although many of the josekis and fusekis in these games are old by today's post-AI style, his sharp analysis continues to be valid and worthy of understanding.

[Micah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only recently discovered how often and accurately pros use positional judgement (i.e., basically counting). Obviously it's not as crucial for amateurs, but it's still very useful. . . . This book covers many other things too, and in fact positional judgement is only covered pretty generally. I found it full of lessons and ideas, especially about playing unusual moves. The introduction describing how Nie and other go players were persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and sent to work in the countryside by the Red Guards was also pretty interesting.