200 Endgame Problems

BGJ 171 Spring 2015, Reviewer: Roger Huyshe

by Shirae Haruhiko

The first section, ”Basic Problems”, contains 100 problems of a fairly didactic bent, introducing common endgame tesujis, with variations of the same tesuji appearing in several problems in a row to hammer it in. The second section, ”Application Problems”, is both harder and wider-ranging: the tesujis are more complex, life-and-death plays a much larger role, and there are groups of problems on various broad themes (exactly when can you force a seki in the corner, a few counting problems thrown in out of the blue, etc.). There are also three interludes, giving instances from games and counting examples.

The first half is suitable for single-digit kyu players, and is nicely focused. The second half gets into the low dan-level (though strong kyu-level players would also get something out of it), but its lack of organization and the way it tried to shoehorn everything into a problem format bothered me at times.