What exactly do tsumego do in terms of improvement? I don't really get into life and death situations in my games so does tsumego really help? I'm told to study lots of tsumego, but wouldn't studying tesuji or opening problems be better? I'm hoping someone can clarify for me.

http://senseis.xmp.net/?Tsumego this page says that studying tsumego is the best way to improve

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Studying Go in China- http://www.Aaronko.net - My Go Blog

Don't close your eyes or the stones die.

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Off the top of my head and certainly not exhaustive:

1) It'll improve your ability to read ahead and to do so faster. A very, very useful skill to improve.

2) It'll improve your instinct for seeing vital points.

3) You can learn something about shape from them (similar to point 2)

4) They're fun!


Someone more experienced will almost certainly be able to give you more and/or better reasons.

If you never get into life and death situations is this perhaps because you don't play as sharply as you could? I find that knowing when my group can live if it is cut off gives me the confidence to play aggressively when I need to. Study life and death and focus on playing fighting games!

That said, do work your way through Tesuji from the Elementary Go Series if you haven't already.

if you plan on getting stronger then you will be sure to get into such situations in which life and death are vital

There are many skills in go. IMHO, you should study them all.

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Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I wouldn't seperate these two. L&D is focused on the corner while tesuji is focused on center and edges of the board. When your opponent steals a corner that you have supposed to be yours, you will realize what L&D is good for.

The moment you need to apply tsumego in your game is when the question arises about life or death of a group (yours or your opponent's). So this WILL appear in your games, trust me.

At that moment, a hugh chunk of points is at stake, probably determining the outcome of the whole game. Also if you are making a devensive move to secure your group when it wasn't necessary, you lose sente, which is also very big.

That is why tsumego is so important: Go is basically about the life and death of groups.

However, I think you are just on the right track: Play your games and see for yourself what you feel is important. (Tsumego will become one of the things.)

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

Tsumego, when done correctly by finding the best moves for both players, will improve your visualization capabilities and also helps you to memorize tesuji moves. This sort of training is useful, since the situations that happen on Go board are complex and rules-of-thumb can only get you so far. If you want to become actually strong go player, I suggest you improve in reading.

I see now. Doing tsumego will not only help me protect and kill groups, it will also enhance my abilities to read ahead and calculate.

_________________
Studying Go in China- http://www.Aaronko.net - My Go Blog

Don't close your eyes or the stones die.

In Go it's not how thick it is, it's what you do with it!

My Kgs Rank Graph

Life-and-Death -- the very name itself is a *ahem* dead give away.