Why oh why is this so? I can zip through an easy/ starter collection (WBaduk, Hactar) of them and solve them. Play 9x9 with a 5 stone handicap and still lose (Go Droid).

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"Hell if you understand everything I said, you’d be me." ~ Miles Davis ~

You have to post/review your games to figure it out. There is no easy answer.

This sounds obvious but it isn't to many of us: It's all well and good to be training your reading but it's not going to help you if you keep moving on instinct and not reading things out.

Go requires many skills.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

To expand a bit on this, I can read out an isolated area, but the big picture eludes me..

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"Hell if you understand everything I said, you’d be me." ~ Miles Davis ~

Reading out a local situation is relatively easy compared to being able to tell what effect the result will have on the rest of the board. I don't have any tips for this, I suck at it as much as everyone else my strength.

It can be difficult to learn certain patterns and ideas through tsumego alone, such what to do in open-space fighting (tsumego tend to focus on more confined regions).

Best way? Play games and have them reviewed by stronger players.

Can you post such a game? You might be making some fundamental, but easily corrected, mistakes.

Before I changed jobs, and had time to play online, I played at OGS, Dragon and the like, turn based servers
I tried a 2 or 3 on go ladder and they never got reviewed so i just gave up there..
Boidhre played and then walked me through a game once (Thanks BTW)

I changed jobs, had less time to play, so I went back to reading/ studying/ tsumego

a year ago I bought a smart phone and installed godroid and a few apps and realized I hadn't improved diddly-squat on the game side, but was able to solve problems much faster than before. I will play a few this weekend and post them up on the board next week. Thanks!

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"Hell if you understand everything I said, you’d be me." ~ Miles Davis ~

I will relay an approximate dialog that I had with Diana Koszegi.

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be immersed

When you know there's a solution, when it's presented as a tsumego problem, you can solve it -- let's call this understanding Level A.

In a real game, for a similarly difficult situation, but which is not presented
as a tsumego problem, you cannot always play correctly;
but you would like to be able to always play correctly in such cases -- let's call this understanding Level B.

There seems to be a gap between A and B, at least for you, Kirby, and likely
for many others. You asked Diana how to bridge this gap and she suggested
you solve more go problems.

What do you think of her advice? Do you agree or disagree?

In the preface of graded go problems for beginners vol 4, Kano Yoshinori writes:
"[This volume] is aimed at the 10 to 15 kyu player. The problems here are more difficult than the ones in volume three and if you could solve go problems of the same level of difficulty during your own games, your strength would be higher than 10 kyu". So he warns the reader that this kind of gap exists. It certainly exists for me.

I see it this way:

Understanding 0: cannot solve the problem
Understanding A: can solve the problem when presented as a problem (and perhaps the one or other hint)
Understanding B: can solve the problem in game when taking the time to read carefully
Understanding C: can solve at glance

Solving harder go problems help for 0 -> A, easier gor problems help for A -> B and B -> C.
For example as a 20k I could find a snapback in tsumego (by thinking real hard ^^) but only rarely in game. More and more snapback problems mean that I will now spot a snapback in (almost) every case as well as the threat of a potential snapback in a shape. What I achieved for this simple tactic I'm sure is also true for dan players with complex shapes.

More tsumego can help, but not any tsumego. A pro I asked about study at a tournament two weeks ago told me this: solving similar shapes, that are not too hard to read, over and over again is the most helpful for in-game reading.

You don't solve tsumego for the purpose of solving more tsumego You solve tsumego because you want to recognize and remember proper shapes, you want to see weaknesses of your/opponent's stones and find the best way of abusing/fixing it. You are building your intuition and reading capabilities and you want it all make completely natural.

So yeah, if you can solve tsumego, yet you fail to recognize the same pattern in game, you need to study more tsumego


To the OP: You really should post some of your games here. If you are losing 9x9 with 5 stones handicap, you must be repeating a few fundamental mistakes that can be easily fixed/explained.

I just remembered an interesting game from baduk tv.

http://gogameguru.com/baduk-tv-videos/b ... pisode-11/

Chi Chikun plays an esxcellent tesuji to turnaround a game...

"Won would have felt as if he got hammered in the head.
If it were a life and death problem, he'd solve it in an instant.
But it appeared in a real game.
It looks like a beginner's move, so Won missed it.
And black's thickness distracted Won's reading."

I agree.

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be immersed

here ian example of a loss of mine, 13x13 w/ 9 stones..
http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8444

thx in advance

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"Hell if you understand everything I said, you’d be me." ~ Miles Davis ~

I find I have the opposite problem. Terrible at life & death, but a better eye for strategy.

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Poka King of the south east.

If you are good at tsumego but suck in games, it means you are not studying the right level of tsumego problems. You need to study problems which are just slightly beyond your level so you can stretch the limits of your tsumego abilities. Of course you also need to practice easy tsumego problems to burn the basic patterns in your mind as well. The difference between "study" and "practice" is that you will spend much more time per problem when you study.

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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.

I think there is a point like:
Understanding D: That's a problem?

Consider, for example, the humble atari, or when one is stronger, perhaps something like a simple snapback.

How many games have you played against real-life opponents? As a beginner, I find myself lulled into thinking I can solve problems, read strategy, and spar against computer programs. Yet when I find myself across the board (virtual or otherwise) from a real opponent, it's a whole different game. I have found that there is no substitute for practice in face-to-face or virtual face-to-face games. You may simply need to put the problem books down and play more games.