The Heart of Go Discovery 6: Zone Press Park

And now for something completely different! How about a Go book without diagrams?! At least for the first twenty odd pages O Meien, a former Honinbo titleholder, dispenses with Go diagrams while expressing his thoughts about food! It is an unusual way to write a Go book, to say the least. However, O Meien is crafty like a fox. No player reaches the heights that he has without amassing a treasure trove of knowledge about Go and he is generous about sharing it. But the reader must be patient! Perhaps that is part of the lesson. But what on earth is a 'zone press'?! O Meien tantalizes and teases the writer assigned to work on the book with him, then explains his theory in detail. In many ways it is similar to orthodox teaching, but he gives everything a new slant. And in the final chapter he presents a unique game in which his opponent played elsewhere five times while he was attacking! It all makes for a lively account. "The words 'zone press' originally come from soccer. I believe that it was a term that the coach of the Japanese soccer team used for his soccer strategy. It fits exactly with my own perspective on Go and, at that time, I was doing a special feature for a magazine and I borrowed the term... 'Zone' is the relationship of the position of the stones on the board. 'Press' is the power relationship of stones on the board. With just this 'zone' and 'press' it is possible to think about everything in Go." - O Meien 9 dan (author) This book is Volume 6 of the Heart of Go Discovery Series.