Sorry speechase, perhaps you don't understand it because it's too flabbergastingly simple: "I suck compared to professionals".

Indeed, and This is exactly why i had the idea. Obviously history shows that memorizing tsumego is not necessary for improving reading, and its almost certainly not sufficient either. On the other hand, solving tsumego is clearly necessary, but probably not quite sufficient (you need to actually play the game too, i would think)

But the question really just revolves around whether it would help at all.

Its hard to pinpoint exactly why a professional's eyes would go straight to the only possible intersection that might work, whereas a weaker player wouldn't begin fo have the slightest idea why other intersections wouldn't work.

I think it really comes down to what part of their subconscious makes them realize the other intersections are hopeless. It certainly seems logical that it could be because they've seen similar shapes before, in which case memorizing could work.

I've been told by several strong players that this view of the purpose of life and death is completely incorrect, and that studying life and death to learn basic shapes is critical. I also read that Cho Chikun (or maybe some other pro, but I think it was Cho Chikun), said that studying very difficult and uncommon life and death was bad for your go, because it would train you to intuitively see moves which don't typically work, whereas studying common life and death shapes was beneficial because your intuition would be correct more often.

Also I have evidence for this view in the countless games that I've won due to my opponent's not realizing that their invading stones are forming the outline of an L+1 or J group (and also that those are dead), whereas I can see it 10 moves in advance. I'm not sure why so many people in L19 think that life and death is all about learning to read better and not at all about practical knowledge of common life and death shapes.

any quotes?


It's true that improving you intuition is important, but important =/= the main point.



Just because something works against weaker players, doesn't mean it will work against stronger players. If a strong player sees something 10 moves in advance, it is because he read, not because he saw a shape forming.




Perhaps because strong players constantly emphasize reading above all else. If the purpose of life and death is too learn basic shapes, why do professionals create complicated and artificial life and death problems.

Read the description of this book: http://www.slateandshell.com/SSYY004.html
does this sound like a book geared towards teaching reading, or developing and intuition about common shapes?

I would argue that improving your intuition *is* the main point, and is more important than improving your reading ability (although both skills are still necessary). But that by solving tsumego, you are training both skills at the same time, although it may not necessarily be the fastest possible way of training your intuition.

If you were to calculate every possible variation of moves in a given tsumego there could potentially be be thousands of possibilities. If you become slightly more efficient at how quickly you can check moves, you haven't really reduced your overall solving time substantially. On the other hand, if you can immediately discredit 4 out of 5 of the possibilities without checking them at all, then you have reduced your overall solving time by many orders of magnitude.

If persons A and B can solve the same problems with A always checking fewer variations than B, then A will almost certainly solve all problems faster, as well as be able to solve problems that B can't solve at all.

I mean yes, if you don't have intuition but can read, you will be much less likely to solve problems, and when you do it will take longer, however you will still know if you have the right answer or not, and what it is(assuming you have it). if you can't read and do have a your answers are little more than glorified guesses. Both are important but I still think reading is the main point, for the reasons listed in my above post.

Well remember that I initially proposed only memorizing tsumego which you have already solved by your own skill. So you would still be doing all the reading that you would normally doing. But then after that you would be comitting that shape to memory. It's not like a one or the other thing where you sacrifice reading for memorizing. Let me use one of the Cho Chikun problems as an example:

http://tsumego.tasuki.org/cho-2-intermediate.pdf

Suppose you spend however much time is necessary to solve problem 1. And then you memorize it so that you instinctively know that the answer to that exact tsumego is 1-2. If you then encounter a situation similar to problem 3 in a real game, you might remember this problem and then check 1-2 before any other moves. If you hadn't, you might first check 1-5 because it's obvious, and then you might check 1-3 because it's the midpoint.

Or maybe even earlier than that, suppose 1-6 isn't on the board yet (because that's a lot more likely than seeing the position of problem 3 with black to play), but you realize the position is still similar to the tsumego you've memorized. You would have to spend way less time to realize that 1-6 is a serious ko threat. Or you simply get to problem 3 a few minutes later and you solve it instantly because you already did #1.

I think people are confusing my question with "is it ok to memorize the answers to tsumego instead of practicing my reading?". I'm only saying that I think there could be additional value in memorizing the answers to ones you've already solved.

Fair enough, but there is additional value in watching kibitz on KGS, but for the love of god, if you want to improve don't do that . all joking aside you do have a good point, and I did sort of put my foot in my mouth at the beginning of this thread. either way, now I mostly am just disagreeing with time's post above.

I really don't understand your objection to the statement about knowing life and death shapes. Do you honestly believe that strong players don't immediately recognize that an L+1 group is dead, and that they are reading it out every time it may occur in one of the branches of their reading? Or, do you believe that somehow it would not make them weaker if they had to do that extra reading every time?

Yilun Yang's problem books are exactly the type of thing that some pros dislike because they show you a bunch of weird shapes that never show up in real games, and so you're training your mind to see moves that are rarely going to work. If you actually looked at the types of life and death problems that show up in life and death problem books, the vast majority of them are not "complicated and artificial"

For example, if you look at Cho Chikun's life and death dictionary, it's all basic life and death shapes, and they build upon each other. Same with Lee Chang Ho's life and death books (http://senseis.xmp.net/?LiChangHoJingjiangWeiqiSihuo), same with Graded Go Problems for Dan Players, same with http://senseis.xmp.net/?StepByStepWeiqiClassroom. Hell, even books that are known among weaker players for having bizarre problems (xuan xuan qijing, gokyo shumyo) are mostly very typical life and death situations that arise in common joseki. Also, I have yet to have a 6d+ player tell me that studying the Igo Hatsuyoron is an effective use of time for improving at go.

While he does seem to enjoy making odd probems, the last chapter of Fundamental Principles of Go is devoted to something fairly similar to the OP's plan. In it he shows a series of common corner positions, and then shows common invasions. The idea is always either to live inside the opponent's corner formation, or to make a viable shape that busts out. The idea behind this chapter, is that the reader "learn" (memorize) these ways of living and escaping so that he won't have to spend his reading energy during a game. This suggests to me that he believes that there are certain shapes worth memorizing, and in fact he also mentions that if you want to get good at go, you should learn the 300 or so common josekis.

In a similar vein, I imagine that knowing some frequent corner tsumegos would be advantageous - at some point. The question is - is this the right time to start learning this sort of thing, or would it not be better to spend one's limited time getting better at reading.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Did you actually read my post? Of course knowing an L+1 group is unsettled is convenient, but it is not that important because they could just read it out instead. I never said having intuition was a bad thing, and I even said that it was important.


Do you have any sources that show that pros dislike them? Yilun Yang is a very respected teacher, and I have never heard a complaint about one of his books.

Obviously, because having a good intuition is important. But it still isn't the main point.

See above. Also the reason no one has recommended you study the igo hatsuryon, is probably because it is to hard for you.

I'm genuinely curious: how many don't? Do pros typically agree on this, or is there a lot of divergence of opinion? Where such divergence exists, a good initial reaction is that the pros do not themselves understand how they/we learn.

That said, I think I do agree with you about the importance of internalizing basic shapes. What the best way to do that is, I do not know.

There is an interesting post somewhere on Sensei's about what one must do to properly read a tsuemego--Bill Spight participated, and there was a discussion about how much you had to understand miai. Perhaps Bill remembers?

Edit: fixed misplaced bbcode tags

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Occupy Babel!

In response to Time:

The 'typical' problems in the classical books tend to be the easier problems; the problems that are more artificial tend to be more complicated and therefore more interesting. Also, of course strong players all know the basic life and death shapes cold, but do you think that these are the only shapes that show up in games? It's important to have strong reading ability so that if a weird shape shows up, you can deal with it properly, esp. in regards to strange moves that are not what you'd expect. I think the advice you read is good advice for weaker players, because it's useful to know what simple shapes are alive, dead, etc. but after you know the easy shapes you have to be able to read out not-easy shapes completely.

Is this what you had in mind?

http://senseis.xmp.net/?GoProblemsTheFudgeFactor

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Yep.

_________________
Occupy Babel!

I have trouble believing that people can strictly separate "knowing the status of x group" from "being able to read out the status really quickly". Life and death are so fiddly! Change one liberty, add one nearby stone, ignore one yose, and suddenly everything is different.

Obviously it is good to be strong at reading, but if you look at the people I am responding to, they are saying things like "the point of life and death isn't to learn common shapes, it is to get better at reading." Even if you take this to mean that the learning to read better is the more important goal, I don't agree.

You say that the advice is good for "weaker players." What AGA rank of players do you think on average knows even really basic life and death? Even most of the 4 and 5 dans I have talked to don't immediately recognize that J group is dead and that it is alive with the hane, and other really basic shapes. Aside from that, given the amount of time people actually use in their tournament games, it seems pretty silly to encourage them to study problems that will take them 25 minutes to solve.

I say all of this as someone who went through Yilun Yang's L&D Volume 1 when I was about 2k. I enjoy doing difficult tsumego, but when it comes to getting better, it would have been much more beneficial if I had from the beginning studied all the common shapes, and all the variations of them, rather than some contrived problem that takes 30 minutes to read out.

That's why you have to make your own flash cards.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

That is what I am saying, as I have stated explicitly.


I find this rather difficult to believe. Either way, who cares, in any practical situation they can just read it out.




No one said a good life and death problem should take you 25 minutes. just that it should teach you to read.



This is a statement. I still don't understand why you think this. Is there any reasoning?

I guess the fact that the majority of strong players suggest learning life and death in this way, and that the majority of L&D books are organized in this way doesn't count as reasoning. You also say things along the lines of "it's not useful to memorize the L+1, because you could just read it out"

Do you not realize that the most efficient way to better reading is better pruning of branches? It's not like strong players have trained their brains to become computationally faster, it's almost all in the fact that they can evaluate positions more rapidly because of a lot of pattern recognition. Being able to stop your reading 10 moves earlier because you know several basic life and death shapes is infinitely more efficient than some vague notion of "reading better"