Close Encounters with the Middle Game

BGJ 176 Summer 2016
Reviewed by Tony Atkins

by Michiel Eijkhout
220 pages
ISBN 978-4-906574-80-3

Kiseido Publishing Company first launched the Mastering the Basics series back in 2002, with Five Hundred and One Opening Problems (K71). Since then the series has grown and covered many aspects of the game, all original works by Western, but Japan-based, writers Richard Bozulich and Rob van Zeijst. Close Encounters with the Middle Game is the tenth in this series (K80) and brings with it an author new to the series, Michiel Eijkhout (6d). The design of the book is the same as the others with the same cover picture, this time with a purplish-blue frame.

The origin of the book is a series of articles written by Michiel, in Dutch, for the Dutch Go Journal. Called Move by Move, it ran from 2003 for ten years. The 32 most interesting of the 50 original articles were selected and reworked to form the collection in the book. Each article takes a crucial moment from the middle game in a top professional game and looks at the various options on how to proceed, how the professional did carry on and whether it was successful. The comments are claimed to be aimed at the 5k to 2d level.

It was back in the winter that I got an email from Michiel asking if I could help find someone to check over the English, after translation from Dutch into Dutch English. Naturally I offered and he emailed the texts back saying just to look at the words, as the technical content had already been checked. Naturally one has to look at both and yes I did find diagram and other errors; these have all been fixed in the printed version. Most of the work in checking was improving the readability through better punctuation, but also a few spelling errors, sometimes hard to spot as Kiseido always use American English spelling.

Over all I found the games and the comments both interesting and entertaining, and, sure, I learnt a bit too. Each of the 32 games is a chapter and the chapters are split up into five sections: Frameworks of Territory, Invading or Reducing, The Art of Trading, Mean Fighting, Encounters with the Unexpected. The layout has two or three full-board positions per page, with the relevant text near at hand. There is the usual convention of figures for game moves (with the number of moves thereon in brackets) and diagrams for variations, so it is easy to keep track of what is going on; there is no need to lay the stones out on a board. You aren’t able to see the whole game, but the players’ names and the event are supplied, so can look them up elsewhere if desired. However, the final result of the game is given, so you can judge how the position affected the outcome.

In all I recommend it as an interesting read and a useful part of your Go library.