A Compendium of Trick Plays, by The Nihon Kiin. Yutopian Y2; 1995.

This book has chapters on Essential Knowledge of Trick Plays, by Ishida Yoshio, on The Larger Strategy of Trick Plays, by Kageyama Toshiro, on Introducing Trick Plays, by Mihori Sho, and on Caution! Trick Play Ahead!, by Maeda Nobuaki. The first chapter is a compilation of famous trick plays, the second chapter has trick plays that don't hurt you even if your opponent doesn't fall for them, the third chapter is perhaps somewhat more theoretical, and the fourth chapter contains problems.

I've read through this book quite quickly. I didn't care too much for the first and last chapters: I realize that if I don't read out sequences far enough ahead then I may be surprised and dismayed by what happens to me, but I'm not sure that seeing a book present sequence after sequence is the way that I want to learn how to solve that. The middle two chapters I liked somewhat more: they were at a bit more abstract level of discussion, so I it was easier to get something out of them without worrying too much about the details of the sequences. Even so, I think that it will be a long time before I read this book again; I just don't care that much about the topic, and I don't think that reading it would be a particularly efficient way to improve my game right now.

Click here to see Yutopian's blurb about the book.

david carlton <carlton@bactrian.org>

Last modified: Sun Aug 10 21:00:08 PDT 2003