I'm still hung up on your first post in this thread, Robert:



Don't you think this is a bold, if not arrogant, statement? Is there not the slightest of possibilities that one of these authors, who are all stronger than you, from one of the thousands of books that you've read, has written truths in their books that you don't fully understand?

To say that the "details and depth" pale in comparison to you own self-written text seems a bit arrogant to me.

Of course, I know the reply that's coming next. Something aling the lines of go strength not equating to knowledge, how there is not evidence that their books are better, yada, yada, yada...

Surely this isn't the best way to promote the aales of your own books... I can't help but wonder what your intention is in this kind of nonsense.

_________________
be immersed

It seems that my comment in another thread is what sparked this discussion (read:argument), so even though it's not really relevent, I feel the need to clarify that statement.



I wasn't really thinking in terms of English vs Japanese Go material, so much as assuming that there were things worth reading in both languages, and that as a monolingual English speaker I was missing out on the ones written in Japanese.

I do imagine that the volume of material published in Japanese may mean you're more likely to find a good book on the subject that interests you, but that in no way implies that Japanese books are generally better than English ones.

Sorry for making such a pointless, self-satisfying post.

Yes, but in addition, it seems to be also hard for you to accept someone's different view as objectively true even if it is sufficiently supported by reasons.

Also, it seems to be hard for you to accept your own view as false even if it lacks reasons or sufficient reasons. This seems to be because you are not sufficiently able to be make the distinction between facts and you own opinions.

The result, which can be observed all over all the go discussion forums in the last decades, is thread derailment. It is not a coincidence that a much larger percentage of threads in which you participate tend to derail. Your style of discussion, due to the inability to see other peoples point of view, is the cause.

Now I do not think you do this on purpose (i.e. you are not deliberately trolling or such things), but it is rather hard to change the way your mind works. So I think the lesson to learn here, for most of us, is: Let it go. Ignore the outrageous claims that Robert makes. It is not productive to engage in discussion, you will just derail the thread. Ignore, provide alternative information to the other posters in the thread where appropriate, move on.

Ok. Then I do not need to reply to your previous remarks in this your message.



1) To motivate better books and go theory sharing in future.

2) In particular, to motivate better Asian books and go theory sharing in future.

3) To motivate everybody to reveal the existence of more still hidden to us good or better Asian books.

4) To motivate stopping of indifferent praise of literature where there are knowledge and teaching gaps.

5) To motivate better appreciation of different degrees of quality in literature.

6) To motivate everybody to reveal evidence - instead of what you do (meta-discussion) - that better, equally good or at least half as good go knowledge as I teach exists in Asian literature, or - otherwise and instead of resorting to meta-discussion - to accept as fact that indeed the knowledge presented in my books is superior or, in parts, even far superior to all other knowledge on a same or closely related topic. In this case, instead of calling me arrogrant, you might as well praise the existence of a great Western researcher in go theory. Can you praise only Asian top players and, let's say, Western pop stars? More kinds of extraordinary achievements are possible! In particular, what do you think of my achievement to assess each joseki's influence value, especially in comparison to Asian professionals' teaching in literature? Can you appreciate the amount of related preliminary thinking during the past 15 years or that I save those interested that amount?

No, don't worry. Some of us are just more eager to discuss than you might expect:)

Herman, I am convinced by sufficiently convincing reasons but not by insufficient reasons. The only one making a real effort to study whether some Asian material might be superior to mine is John. So far, he has dug out only some preliminary semeai history, which is no sign of superiority. He (much earlier) is also the one trying to reveal and provide evidence by reviewing potentially noteworthy Asian books. Even they are not convincing evidence of superiority. The "evidence" provided by others is even weaker. The only really apparent superiority (besides problem books) is not quality but sheer quantity. Now you claim that I would not accept evidence. What I do not accept is too weak evidence. Why do you (or anybody else than John, who tries hard) not become specific and provide evidence of an Asian joseki book with influence values for all josekis in a better quality than symbolic number guesswork?

An ability to accept evidence and reasons requires their existence and sufficiently convincing quality. I do not just pretend to accept for the sake of doing you a favour of less lengthy discussions. To end discussions, you must provide sufficiently good evidence!

The quality of evidence is normally assessed primarily by how it achieves a set of criteria. Your criteria is different to those of other people. As a result, something which isn't good enough evidence to you can still be good enough evidence to someone else.

You haven't yet provided any good evidence that your criteria of assessing the quality of instructional material is superior to anyone else's, which is the crux of some of this discussion. As far as I am aware, there is no empirical gold standard as to what quantifies "better" with respect to instructional material of any kind, with the exception perhaps of its ability to improve the rank of its reader. So far, I feel that Japanese literature has demonstrated an ability to increase people's strength, and I haven't seen similar testimonials regarding your books, so as far as I'm concerned they haven't demonstrated enough quality yet. I suspect this is due almost entirely to its lack of circulation, so it doesn't demonstrate that they are poor either, but until then comparing the quality of your literature to other works is a pointless exercise, as there's no proof for or against its efficacy.

The fact your work meets your own criteria more sufficiently is self-evident, and I wouldn't expect any different as you are the primary author. What you are failing to demonstrate to anyone is why your approach to the subjects you cover is a superior one to the other ones adopted by Eastern books and professional teachings. The most effective way to do this is probably unasked for anecdotes praising your books accomplishments at improving playing ability. I have seen literally in excess of a hundred of these for "Lessons in the fundamentals of Go", "Opening theory made easy" and "Attack and defense", but none yet for your material. Until you have this, you can't expect to see a different attitude from posters here or elsewhere in the Go community.

My post was not specifically related to this thread, but to all discussions on all go forums throughout the past decades.

You can ignore my post, or you can take it for what it is, good objective advice, and try to improve yourself on this area.

Until such time, my advice to others stands: Ignore, provide alternative information to the other posters in the thread where appropriate, move on.

To repeat, my major criteria (for go knowledge books) are (Model A):
- improvement potential
- greater amount of taught knowledge
- importance / amount of new inventions

Other models of criteria (as far as I recall) are:

Model B:
- improvement potential

Model C:
- weak player's improvement potential

Now let me compare the criteria models.

Model C is a joke; Model B is obviously better (it includes the possibility for Model C).

To compare Models A + B, let me simplify and concentrate on greater amount of taught knowledge. Is knowledge valuable at all? Yes, because it is a major basis for potential improvement. Is a player stronger if he knows only "live" or if he knows both "live" and "connect"? More likely, he is stronger if he knows both. More knowledge bears the potential for greater strength. Since Model B accepts improvement as a criterion, this thus implies that also greater amount of taught knowledge is a good criterion.

Now you might object that greater amount of taught knowledge were already contained in the improvement criterion. However, this is so only partially because improvement is a process. Already achieved improved can, in principle, be followed by later, further improvement. Such requires a cause, and a cause can be: still unexplored or not sufficiently explored knowledge. Therefore greater amount of taught knowledge is a genuine extension of the improvement criterion for the good of the overall quality of a judged book. QED:)

(Will reply more later.)

You seem to have missed the context of my post. The point was, The main criterion for purchasing a book, its quality, is not dependent upon whether or not an author is perceived as unpleasant. If you disagree, let me have a look at your library.

As to purchasing the works of local writers (those in our hemisphere), I agree with you entirely.



After a year of stagnation, I gained 1 stone after reading one of Robert's books.



In this case, while we all seem to know a thing or two about Robert, too few posters seem to have any knowledge of Japanese go literature.

_________________
Patience, grasshopper.

It has also another potential: to stop or greatly slow down further increment of people's strength. It all depends on which books one is reading at which level.



A major factor for popularity is time of circulation. E.g., Lessons in the Fundamentals, Tesuji, Attack and Defense are the bread and butter books know for decades and appeared when there were only few books. So they had a good chance to be spread to every club's knowledge.



I have, but obviously their number does not compare yet with the aforementioned bread and butter books.

(More later.)

I am not failing to demonstrate, but maybe you have not listened carefully enough earlier: My books teach a lot of knowledge important for but missing in Asian books and teaching. E.g., where the Asian source might say "Black has got influence", I say more precisely "Black has got 7 more important outside influence stones than White". On the next joseki, the Asian source might say "Black has got influence" while I say "Black has got 10 more important outside influence stones than White". You learn more from me because I enable you to compare every two strengths of influence! (Afterwards, my book studies more powerful knowledge, if you need some.)



You are an optimist. I am still waiting for something much simpler: the first thanks for explaining well what thickness and influence are. Strategic Concepts of Go belongs to the much praised bread and butter books, but its thickness explanation is much weaker. Do people realise at all just how very important it is to know connection, life and territory as the fundament of these concepts? Whithout appreciating connection, there is aji. Without life, the "thickness" is subject of attack. Without territory potential, the thickness is as useless as it is strong:)

Just to play devil's advocate (what? me?), where's the evidence that demonstrates these numbers? How do I know that these are accurate figures and not unjustified claims? Precision is great, but false precision isn't. More importantly, do stronger players than yourself look at your positional assessments and specifics and say "Yes, I feel Robert is correct here"?

Mainly because you're 5d and claiming how brilliant you are at these topics. If you were stronger, I would take you more seriously. If you wrote books you thought were good and were more humble about it, I would probably find them interesting. However, the declaration of the greatness of your works against books written by much stronger players leaves me a bit amused most of the time.

I think this is an important point, not just a devil's advocate argument. Quoting Robert Jasiek from earlier in this thread:

What exactly does "according to today's knowledge" mean here? Have your books been peer-reviewed?

True, but professionals very often will not claim to know what is correct and only what they see are as options. When Robert Jasiek seems to claim to know the one true answer, I find it amusing.

Have to agree. The existence of Richard Hunter's books, which were originally just short articles in the British Go Journal, has always amused me.

Regarding Forum Policy: I'd prefer that people don't use this forum to self promote their books, CDs, etc. If you've put out a product, great, but don't slime the forum about it.

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North Lecale

Robert:

i have read thousands (probably few hundres) of boooks on go.
that is how i got to be where i am.
for that reason, i know quality of book when i read them.
from what i read on your sample pages your book was a waste of time for me.
you ask for evidence and my reading background should be good enough reason to judge your materials.
if you want me to judge your book 100% then send it to me. i promise i will read them and judge them without prejudice.
but i know you wont because you already know what i am going to say about your book.
as a math major, it was hard for me to understand terms you used in your book. Think how others will feel when they see class 1 shape class 2 shape, etc. you talk about them as if they understand your materials 100%.

finally, for your sake, have some respect towards people who are stronger and more knowledgable than you.
because your arogance make you look stupid and i know you are not.

_________________
"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

In the related book Joseki 3 Dictionary, of course. See "influence stone difference" in the sample
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/Joseki_3_Sample.pdf



1) Unlike the exact formal influence model in Joseki 2 Strategy, the influence model (influence stone difference) used for joseki evaluation is a great simplification and is an approximation rather than exactness. The unit of this model is 'number of counted stones', so it does not become more precise than positive natural numbers. I use this model because it is precise enough for the purpose of usage, it is very conveniently simple and it works exceptionally well within the joseki evaluation method of Joseki 3 Dictionary chapter 3.

2) It is possible to make minor errors in the value determination when one has to decide whether a stone is or is not an important outside influence stone. With a bit of experience, one learns to make good decisions though. It is easy to ignore 1st line stones or light remainders (such has helping stones (played as forcing moves) in front of an opposing wall). The typically more difficult decisions are related to whether some stone is still important for the outside or already too near to the inside.

3) Despite the small possible errors in (1) and (2), the joseki evaluation method in most cases tolerates small variation of values.

4) You know the values directly from what you see and can count: the stones. Namely the important outside influence stones. It is very easy to count (only a few!) stones!

5) Since the likely errors are small, the impact of errors is much less an issue when compared with a professional symbolic number system of, say, the possible values 50%, 80% or 100% influence. In such a very rough value model, any error such as saying 80% when it should be 50% has a huge impact. (And such errors would be too big to allow something similar to the joseki evaluation method.)

Conclusion: values are as accurate as necessary and as simple as being applicable easily. The errors allowed in this compromise between accuracy and applicability can be tolerated.



1) The justification for numbers is on the board: the influence stones.

2) The chosen influence model works extraordinarily well in the joseki evaluation method. (399 of 400 correct joseki versus non-joseki characterisations. The 1 failure is by nature outside the system: a huge ko exchange during the middle game.)

3) Application should be in a context of also considering significant other strategic concepts (such as considering a very good relation to an adjacent corner for one player while the other (the local territory advantage) player has a value advantage in the local joseki evaluation model)



Therefore I am so proud of (2) :)



They all should! (I am afraid, they do not do it yet. Not everybody shares my insight that one can learn a lot also from weaker players with interesting ideas.) For my own games, application of the theory helps my planning, especially when I do not know yet whether a variation is joseki or equivalent. (During the middle game, I find influence stone difference an even more useful tool for positional judgement of center dominance. Applied in a few seconds, it gives a surprisingly reliable prediction of who controls the center.)

You are falling into the trap that playing strength is closely related to teaching strength. That stronger players do not necessarily write the better books you see, e.g., for Joseki 3 Dictionary: all the stronger players have not written books with these features yet (*):

- strategic decisions stated for all josekis
- stone difference, territory count and influence stone difference stated for all josekis
- having a good influence evaluation for josekis at all
- functional classification of josekis
- value type classification of josekis
- generally applicable evaluation method for josekis

Stronger players' joseki dictionaries are (I hope for them, but obviously it is not true for all) about equally
- including modern variations
- having many examples of professional games
- being verified by professional experience or databases of professional games (I think that databases provide a more reliable context than a professional's own games because the database is a much greater source)

What stronger players' joseki dictionaries can (but not all do) better than I:
- complicated, heavily tactical variations relying mostly on reading and research on yet deeper reading
- more variations because a dictionary can have more pages and volumes

Why do you take stronger players more serious as long as they do not teach (*) at all? I would be ashamed to NOT teach all those very important, very useful and mighty aspects! Compare contents of books rather than the authors' playing strengths! I used to say that the author from whom I learnt by far the most is James Davies (who is about my playing strength), but in the meantime I am learning more from my own books.

(I am not a stronger player [in real world games] because of topics in my books but because of slow reading in unfamiliar reading tasks, only 5d level local life and death problem solving by reading, only 5d level endgame, slow endgame calculation and a few other weaknesses which I prefer to keep secret for the moment so that my opponents in tournaments are not given a great advantage. [Online games is a completely different story.])