Memorizing Tsumego via SRS

[speedchase]

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?

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.

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"

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.

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.

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

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.

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

[hyperpape]

Yilun Yang's problem books are exactly the type of thing that some pros dislike emphasis added

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

[Shaddy]

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.

[Bill Spight]

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?

Is this what you had in mind?

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

[hyperpape]

Yep.

[jts]

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.

[Time]

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.

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.

[Bill Spight]

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.

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

[speedchase]

Even if you take this to mean that the learning to read better is the more important goal,

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

[Time]

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"

[speedchase]

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.

I see, I just didn't get that before. I think the reason they are organized like that is half because it helps teach reading, and half because it helps with your intuition and knowledge.

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.

I agree that it strong players didn't get strong by growing new nerves in their brain that lets them think faster, but I would argue that they have taught their brain to use computation power for reading that used to be distracted or unfocused when playing go.

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"

intuition is important (as I have said a couple times already) I still do not believe it is the main point of life and death, or as important as good reading.

[Shaddy]

I agree with you that players should know these basic shapes, but you quickly (for some value of quickly) reach a point where you know all of them. I think this should be around AGA 5d, because I'm around AGA 5-6d on a good day and I know just about all of these shapes. I realize that some people who are so strong don't know those shapes, and I agree with you that they should learn them. But once you reach that point, it's really important to practice reading weird shapes, and if you haven't started doing it by then I suspect it will be hard to pick up.

[Time]

Alright, while I was doing some life and death problems I came across some examples which I think will help demonstrate the point I was trying to make regarding recognizing common shapes.

Here are a few go problems that can be solved more or less immediately by someone who has a decent knowledge of basic life and death, that I think would take significantly longer to read out otherwise. Especially if these groups arise after several moves of reading, instantly recognizing the status is going to be very helpful.

$$W
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X O O . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . X . X X X . O . X O . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . O O O X X X . X . O . |
$$ | . . . . . . O . . . . O X O . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . O O . . X . X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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

$$W
$$ -----------
$$ . . . . . . |
$$ . . X . O . |
$$ . . X O . O |
$$ . . X O . . |
$$ . . X O . . |
$$ . . X X X . |
$$ . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . |

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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

$$W
$$ -----------
$$ . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . |
$$ . . X O . . |
$$ . . X O . O |
$$ . . X X O . |
$$ . . . . X . |
$$ . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . |

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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

$$W
$$ --------------
$$ . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . O X . . |
$$ . O . O X . . |
$$ . . . X X . . |
$$ . . O . O X . |
$$ . . . . O O . |
$$ . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . |

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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

Sure, none of these are particularly difficult to read out when they're right in front of you, but what if one of these is the result of 6-7 moves worth of reading? Even if you can read it out in theory, saving 15 minutes of time on your clock is going to help quite a lot.

[daal]

I don't think there's anything wrong with Time's premise that knowing raw information such as is presented in Davies' Life and Death is a valuable asset. Don't forget that the process of learning such shapes to the point of really knowing them necessarily involves reading. While it may be possible to memorize such information, what is being memorized is the result of one's reading. Knowing the results of shapes cold, as Shaddy puts it, is only possible with significant reading ability. Having such known results, allows one to use them as the end point of one's reading during a game. Seems like an advantage to me, both as a time-saver and because it shortens the tree allowing one possessing the knowledge to start reading earlier. Even beginners do something similar by learning things such as how a nakade works.

[speedchase]

Sure, none of these are particularly difficult to read out when they're right in front of you, but what if one of these is the result of 6-7 moves worth of reading? Even if you can read it out in theory, saving 15 minutes of time on your clock is going to help quite a lot.

This example proves my point better that I could ever hope to.
In the situation you described:
IF you can read but not recognize shapes, you can see those positions and try to read them out.
If you can recognize shapes but not read, you are majorly screwed.

This proves that reading is more important right?