On Sensei's Library, you can find information on the status and vital points of various L-groups in the corner (L+1 group, L+2 group, Long L group), and their variations (is the leg on the long or the short side, etc). I can see how it would be very useful to know about all of these. But how to approach it?

Do you memorise them? If so, at what kyu level do you do that? They all look rather similar, and not particularly easy to remember, so are there any easy mnemonics?

Or do you read them out each time you encounter them? At 15kyu, how long should it take to read one? I find them quite difficult to read, does that mean I should give priority to lots of reading practice rather than playing full games?

_________________
Regards,

Peter

I'm a 3k, I don't have them memorized, and I can't read them(or at least I don't in a typical game).

_________________
Sanity is for the weak.

You should definitely practice reading them, but the basic progression isn't complicated: L group is dead, L+1 group is unsettled, L+2 group is alive. It's very similar to the 6-7-8 on the 2nd line progression.

I would like to answer in one word: Don't! But I'm not sure if this wouldn't count as two since it's the abbreviation of "do not".

Seriously, if you have to think about memorising Tsumegos to remember the vital point then you are most like not strong enough yet to really solve them. I would just go along with your everyday Tsumego book and with increasing difficulty you will naturally face the various L-shapes. Over time you will just solve them by instict, just due sheer repitition.
If you really want a thorough work on L-shapes and such, I can recommend Life&Death from the Elemtary Go series.

And yes, I would always prioritizing reading practice, but this could be a personal thing ; )

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Memorization is quite hard and probably fruitless. As you mention, tiny changes in the shape make a huge difference... and some players have trouble spotting even big differences!

For example, the other day I was playing a handicap game with a 4k, and after I invaded the corner my opponent said, "Ah, the L Group! So the corner is dead, right?"

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Corner
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . O X . . . . .
$$ | . . O X . . . . .
$$ | . . O X . . . . .
$$ | . O O X . . . . .
$$ | . X X . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .[/go]

>_>

<_<

I have made much worse mistakes in the past, with other groups. (The "tripod" group, the "comb" group, the "door" group, the six-space eye, "bent four in the corner"...)

So anyway, I think there has to be a sort of reciprocal growth between your own ability to read out the killing variations, and your ability to remind yourself what sequence you are looking for by learning some key facts by heart. When you are starting out, it's enough to know the the "legs" on either side make it easier for the L-group to live. Do more tsumego, keep playing, return to the L-group, and eventually you'll get to a point where "memorizing" is only a slight transition from "knowing very well".

Do you already know things like how many stones you need to live on the second line? These sequences are more fundamental than the L-group and more reasonable study goals, given your reading ability. See SixDieButEightLive

I find it useful to know the expected outcome of a situation in the corner without having to read it, and I suggest you learn that at some point, just like you've probably learned the basic dead shapes to the point that you don't even think about them: Bulky 5? should die, for example. However, I don't recommend sitting down and memorizing the various ways to kill, etc. Knowing the status should give you enough information to read it out when you encounter it and your opponent disagrees/plays a ko threat without using too much of your time.

That said, I'm not sure how useful it would be before you reach, say, 9 or 10 kyu. There are much more fundamental things to work on instead, and knowing those basics will help you read the situations when they arise, including the various tricks and issues caused by incomplete connections, extra liberties, and so forth.

When I learned go, I thought that memorization was a bad idea. Now I am not so sure.



If you do memorize, I think the earlier, the better. Whether the L-groups is where to start is another question. For life and death, I would start with the nakade.

When I started out, this is one of the things I learned. White to play in all three corners.



I have omitted the answers, so that you can have fun playing around with these positions. Enjoy!

Edit: Oops! There is something you probably need to be told, that you cannot be expected to figure out for yourself. See later post.



At 15 kyu I think that you should average around 10 sec. per move. If you need more time for reading, I would suggest 30 sec. max. But find your own pace.



No.

IMHO, there is a similarity to learning a language. Should a 2 year old pick up vocabulary or practice grammar? At 15 kyu, you still learn a lot just by playing. You can also pick up good ideas by kibitzing stronger players. Look at the positions in the SGF file. Do you think that all six possible first plays are equal? If all you have to go by is reading, they are. One or more points should stand out. If you have no sense of potentially good and bad plays, reading is just following a maze of variations.

By all means analyze. By all means play around. But that's not the same as reading.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I have to confess I also confuse the L- and J-group all the time :O


post scriptum:


Interesting!

Nice status-problems, as well : )

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

FWIW, as an anecdote from my experiences:

I never learned the shapes by rote. I learned that L is dead, L+1 is unsettled, L+2 is alive around 5k. It wasn't long after that an L+2 of mine died because it was actually an L+2 with a descent, and I hadn't a clue that changed things because I'd learned it the "wrong" way.

If you can't read it, don't worry about it - if the shape comes up in one of your games (or something that looks like it), read, trust your judgement, learn if you got it wrong. Rinse and repeat.

I wouldn't have had a clue at 10k about the shapes in Bill's post, but I know the answers now at a glance without explicit memorisation or reading the positions out. Experience creates a sort of ambient memory of shapes that will supercede rote learning, and I have a feeling that rote learning would actually get in the way of that process.

I know by heart that L is dead (and hanes make no difference), L+1 unsettled (and some hanes make a difference but I don't know which), L+2 alive (except descent on long side leaves a long ko), J unsettled (plus hane makes alive), straight J is ko, J+1 alive (and the other descent from L+2 is sente to kill, so depending which descent you don't want to give in sente to your opponent you choose to live with L+2 or J+1). I never learned any of the sequences by heart so do that reading in the game, but probably some of the easier ones I have done so many times (e.g. killing a J group) I barely need to read to play them.

Heh, I know *exactly* the same things!

P.S. And the carpenter's square is a ko but I'll learn that one once I'm a dan player later.

OK. Here are the answers.

Along with a variation that gets into rules questions.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

L group? J group? What are those?

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I disagree with some of the other comments here. I think memorizing positions such as the L-group and J-group is very useful. To be able to read a long sequence until it ends up in a known position and then instantly recognize, "This group can be killed from here," really helps the accuracy of my reading. I would recommend memorizing them (either conciously or subconciously, as I suspect many stronger players have) at some point, as long as you also memorize or understand the various positions that go along with killing or living with these groups. I personally memorized them when I was 5k and felt a definite jump in my skill level around that time, and I probably could've benefited from learning them even earlier.

_________________
We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

What memorisation technique worked for you? Words in a list? Diagram flash cards? Mnemonics?

_________________
Regards,

Peter

I didn't consciously use any advanced memorization techniques. Take the L-group for example. I just, with the help of Sensei's, understood how each attempt at living with it failed, and after looking at and thinking deeply about the shape on a couple of occasions I had it memorized. Same for most other shapes I know. To me, memorizing a Go shape is a combination of pattern recognition and understanding various sequences that can result. YMMV.

Addendum: I'm not sure how good your pattern recognition is yet, since you're somewhat of a beginner. Being able to recognize a shape you've seen before is something that improves with time.

_________________
We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

Personally, when I do memorize study in go,
I split the sequence in 10~20 moves (well I usually don't need to do this for josekis), put them inside my head, replay that 10~20 moves myself, and check if it is right.
If right, advance to the next 10~20. If wrong, repeat.

Somehow, this memorization process gets faster and accurate as you get stronger in go. I don't know why.

_________________
Amsterdam, soon.

Losing games, basically. You die once, the shape begins to look familiar. You die two or three times, you start to wonder if that shape has a name. The next time you die in that shape, you'll remember a name, but it will be the wrong name. The fifth time you die, you'll remember the right name, but only after the group is already dead. After dying six times, you'll remember the name of the dead shape you're making two or three moves before it is actually played out, but you still won't remember whether it's dead or alive. And so on.

I'd say if you have to work very hard to memorize the L group and the sequences don't stick with you, then possibly you're not at a point where you would benefit much from it. But if with mild effort you can understand all the variations once shown them, and solve other related problems once you been primed with the "main" variations, then learning it might be good. That was the case for me somewhere around 4k-7k, where I discovered sensei's pages on the L and J groups and a few other miscellaneous shapes ("notchers"), started noticing them everywhere in my games and paying attention, and soon improved a stone as a result.

I think a great deal of the benefit is not the memorization of the one specific shape, but rather generally having a feel for the relevant key points and sequences so that you can more easily solve similar shapes that come up in your games, even if not quite the same. And also knowing the status and what things affect the status so that you can make better judgments in situations in real games that would otherwise be much harder to read out from scratch.

Examples of the sorts of questions for which knowledge of L-group-like shapes can help, at least for a few of the variations:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B What happens if black plays 'a'?
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . O X . . . . O
$$ | . . O X . . . . .
$$ | . a X O . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X . . . . . . .[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Can white live in the corner?
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . W . . . . .
$$ | . . O . X . . O .
$$ | . . X X . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . O .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . X . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . O . . . . . . .[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W Status?
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . . . O . . . .
$$ | . . . X X O . . .
$$ | . X . X O O . . O
$$ | . . X O . . . . .
$$ | . O . O . . . . .
$$ | . . . O . . . . .
$$ | . . O X . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . O . . . . . . .[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B How strong is black's group?
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . X O O . . .
$$ | . . X . X O . O O
$$ | . . . . X X . X .
$$ | . . O . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . O . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . O . . . . . .[/go]