I have been studying from this book for a couple of months now. Since i'm still a newbie in go how difficult are the problems in terms of ranking; for example kgs rankings.

I've never heard of a book by this title.

There is "All About Life and Death"?

edit... or maybe this computer program
http://senseis.xmp.net/?EncyclopediaOfLifeAndDeath

I assume he's talking about the problems available at tsumego.tasuki.org - I would guess that the first page of the elementary volume is something that an absolute beginner (20-30k) should be able to manage, but maybe not manage quickly. By the end of the volume, there are problems that would be challenging for a 10k, or maybe even someone stronger.

Ultimately, the best way to determine whether problems are too hard for you is to see how long it takes you to solve them. I would say one to three minutes of serious concentration to solve each problem is perfectly good for drilling; fifteen to twenty minutes per problem is too hard and (in general) you should look for easier problems, at least if your goal is to get practice reading out life and death. Your rank doesn't really enter into it you are going through the problems at the right pace.

yep i'm talking about the elementary here

http://tsumego.tasuki.org/

The difficulty seems to vary from problem to problem. I went through the first 100 and I'd say some of them were at least 5 kyu. On the other hand, even the last pages have some trivial 1-movers (20+ kyu).

If some problems are too difficult, just skip them and keep going.

That's exactly my feeling jlaire. Some are ridiculously easy and some seem pretty hard. There is no classification whatsoever. Actually i have already done around 750 and i'm confident that i do right 90% of them but not in 1-3 minutes though. Also i rarely skip a problem.

I think the problems are grouped thematically, and in any given theme there are harder variations and easier ones. If I remember right, the first 'easy' volume includes the carpenter's square, which is definitely not 10k material.

Hehe yes, the Carpenter's Square is not kyu-level.

The first volume is good because it has accompanying answers. However, the other volumes do not and since there are many incorrect diagrams I would avoid them. Also, the first vol. has 900-problems. So if you can master all of those, then I think you'd be in a good position to begin investing in some quality tsumego books (if you haven't already).

Thanks guys for the advise
What's a Carpenter's Square?

Oh yeah sure i remember that one. A bit tricky but not very difficult.

The Carpenter's Square is a 'family of shapes' derived from one basic shape. So to master the Carpenter's Square isn't to master one shape, but many.

Examples:

You'll have to excuse my ignorance then. Seems like nothing is that simple in go

Go players misunderstood the Carpenter's Square for centuries. They thought that the invader could kill.

_________________
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 been slowly working my way through these problems too and I agree that there is not a steady increase in difficulty. Well, they do get harder on average but there's still a lot of "scatter", with some hardish problems early on and really easy problems later. But I don't really think of these problems as tsumegoes in the usual sense. It's called the "Encyclopedia of life and death" for a reason, and is purpose is to drill you in recognizing common shapes and the methods they can be attacked or defended, rather than just exercises in reading.

_________________
Poka King of the south east.

That's the purpose behind all tsumego. You do a life or death problem to drill basic shapes and how to attack and defend them, because they come up all the time. There's no secret that separates the tsumego tsumego from other life and death problems.

I don't believe a word of it. Source?


edit:
As for carpenters square problems in this collection, they're all fairly easy. The hardest problem I remember from this one is.. erm, let me see if I can find it again.

edit2: there we go. T'was number 607:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$ black to live
$$ +------------------------------
$$ | . X O . . . O . . . . . . . .
$$ | O X O . . X X O . . . . . . .
$$ | O X O X X O O O . . . . . . .
$$ | O X X X . O . , . . . . . . .
$$ | . O O O O . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Cute problem. I had to "Sherlock Holmes" the solution: there are only five moves worth trying at all, and four clearly don't work, so even though the other option initially looks as though it fails...

But it's given as ko in Gateway to All Marvels and we don't know the history before then