From: Eric Cheymol IMAGINET FR> Date: 17 mar 1997 Subject: Re: "The Art of Shogi" >I believe that the purpose of such a book is or should be to teach how to >play shogi. > >Getting involved in long discussions about theoretical possibilities which >almost never come up except in composed problems does not serve any teaching >purpose and will only discourage those who really want to learn. I don't have received my copy of "The Art of Shogi" yet but I know Tony and I am sure that this is a great work and it will help many western players to improve. This book was written for all players up to 1 kyu-1 dan according to Tony. Even if I am 4 dan (many players know my strength in Europe), I will read this book. I think I can learn about Shogi from it. The previous english book (as far as I know) was "First step to Shogi" by Sunny Sano (Space SANO) published in october 1995 and even if I don't agree about some parts of the book (notation, attempt to give a strict value of the pieces), I find other parts very instructive for beginners (e.g. Opening patterns, Tesuji, Attacking tactics, Breaking down castles ...). This book is another good contribution for spreading Shogi. I have ordered 5 copies of it without reading a single line first ! I think I will easily find some Shogi enthousiasts for reading it and I am sure they will learn a lot from it. So, please Sam, don't write "I believe that the purpose of such a book is or should be to teach how to play shogi" before reading it. You can misjudge it. Hopefully, Tony han not an internet access, otherwise he would lose all his motivation in working for Shogi. Finally, I want to remind you one important thing : Shogi-L's purpose is to help spreading Shogi in the world. Write some positive mails about Shogi, initiate some constructive discussion : your message is rather negative as many of your previous mails were too. Take the examples of great works : the Shogi Database from Matt Casters, the day by day professionnal informations from Patrick Davin, this Week in Shogi from Reijer Grimbergen, ShogiViewer from Joris Ballet ... and many others. Talk about them. Some work positively, some denigrate. Eric Cheymol ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Get the last european Shogi news at ----------------------------------------------------------------------