I believe beginners should play a lot but on small boards only.

- 5x5 to understand the basic rule of capture; one group survives
- 7x7 to go on and discover ko and seki; more than one group can survive
- 9x9 to have a first intro to groups with two eyes, endgame tactics and liberty races; see the efficiency of counting territory instead of alive stones
(some stuff may appear sooner or later, these are just indications)

Small boards lead to shorter games, frequent iterations on basic tactics and concepts. You learn a lot here and little has to be taught specifically this way. You can of course add L&D problems to the rhythm. I'd do that as soon as 9x9 has become a natural playing ground.

Let beginners play a lot of 19x19 and many will drop out, others will get lost but hang in there and imitate pros or club mates but still get lost once the stones go walking.

Our friend Hushfield is not really a beginner anymore. Clearly his tactics need a brushing, for which joseki study in the morning and L&D in the evening may be a perfect cure.

I believe beginners should play on the boards they want to play on.

(moved rant elsewhere, admin or hushfield can remove)

Just wanted to say the photos are awesome, but leaves me with the painful desire to visit China again .

It took me a while to figure this out. Yan Laoshi is pretty hardcore in his approach to problems. The first set of problems he gave me was well above my level. I've seen him give problems to students that are too difficult for sure. Think of a KGS 15kyu that's here that was asked to solve Lee Chang Ho Life and Death volume 5. Just not going to happen. After we bought a bunch of problem collections recommended by Yan Laoshi, two of the students here (myself included) started doing problems that are not so difficult you can't solve them in under five minutes, but challenging enough you might have to spend more than one minute one them. One is speed-solving easy problems (up to 300 a day), while another focuses mainly on problems that are intermediate to hard for his level, meaning spending from a few minutes up to 20 minutes for a single problem. As you can see, we don't get told what level to do, but are presented with a range of high-quality problems from which to build our own study programs.

As stated before I do 1-5 minute life and death problems, currently from 围棋经典死活3600题(初级). Even though we've spotted some wrong problems/solutions along the way (bound to happen with a collection this large), I think this series is excellent and should get at least as much love in the west as the Lee Chang Ho series does.

Sample problems from my life and death study:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c Problem 294 - Black to kill
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X X . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . X . O X X X X X X X . . .
$$ | . X O . O O O O . . . . . .
$$ | . X O X . . . . O X X . . .
$$ | . X X O O . . . O . . . . .
$$ ----------------------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c Problem 386 - Black to kill
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . , X X X X X . . . . .
$$ | X X X X O O O O O X X . . .
$$ | X O O O . . . . O O X . . .
$$ | . . . . . O . X X X . . . .
$$ ----------------------------[/go]

The other students consider these problems really easy, but I'm really glad I discovered this collection, they're perfect for my level and help build a lot of basic shape recognition and work away blind spots in my reading.

For tesuji study I use 阶梯围棋综合棋力测试:手筋分册. Most of the 210 problems from Chapter 1 are solve-on-sight now, but that's because I've reviewed them a week after first solving them. I'll probably review these a second time before moving on to Chapter 2's mid-level tesuji problems, which are much more difficult.

Sample problems from my tesuji study, both are easy if you know the tesuji, but rather challenging if you don't.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c Chapter 1.7. Problem 2 - Black to connect
$$ . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ . . , . . . O O X . . . |
$$ . . . O . O . X O . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c Chapter 1.10. Problem 7 - Black to connect
$$ . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . X X X . |
$$ . . . . . . . X . O X . |
$$ . . . . . O . O . O . . |
$$ . . . . . . . O . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . X O O . |
$$ . . , . O . O . X X X . |
$$ . . . . . . . O . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . O O . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------[/go]

Reviewing problems is done in a very interesting way. Any problems we can't solve on sight, we have to put out on the go board. We mostly study by ourselves, but some of the students taking private lessons with Yan Laoshi get supervised problem study. They set out the problem, think until they read out the entire solution and all refutations, then place the first move. Yan Laoshi will pick a resistance by white (most problems except for the Lee Chang Ho series are black to play), and they play out the solution together. Stones added for solution of problems are done in the same way as variations in game reviews: the single-convex yunzi are flipped upside down, so they are easily spotted. If the student gets the problem wrong, they have to clear the upside down yunzi and play out the solution three times by heart. This is to remember the shape, and spot similar solutions/tesuji faster next time. I've started doing this as well, and it does work wonders for shape recognition. Sometimes, Yan Laoshi will stop at one of the 4-6 go boards in use in his house, and play out a problem with a student.

We all purchased the following joseki dictionary: 围棋定式大全. It consists of joseki which are logically organised, first by stone being approached (hoshi, komoku,...), then by approach move (keima kakari, ogeima kakari,...), then by black response (keima extension, ikken tobi,...) and finally by white's response to black's response. There are joseki (marked with stars for easy visibility and to show complexity of the joseki), overplays and underplays and how to punish them. We were told to learn the entire book by heart, then when we are done with it, start over and do the whole thing again. This will probably take the rest of 2014 (and maybe well into next year for the review) for me to complete. After roughly 20 days here, I'm almost done with the hoshi joseki. These are about 150 pages. The way I study is I start reviewing the joseki I studied the day before. Then I review refutations of overplays, underplays and trick plays. If I skipped some refutations the day before, I would add them in during review the next day. After about half an hour of this I move forward to study around 3-5 new joseki (just remembering the moves). Then I play around with all sorts of different responses (also those not in the book, to see why they do not work). You should think of it like this: The first joseki I learned are like the skeleton of joseki knowledge. I just know the moves. Every time I study an overplay related to that joseki, some flesh is slapped on. I then move on to build the joseki skeletal structure of other body parts. Each time I review, more muscle tissue is added until I reach the full body of joseki. Apologies for the Frankenseki metaphor.

I do try to apply some of the joseki I've studied in my games, which is why I open nirensei most of the time. There's a higher chance I get to apply something I've just studied that way. The more joseki I know for a position, the more confident I feel about finding a good move to handle a certain situation. I still feel like I need to review the hoshi joseki a couple of times before I'll be able to pick the "best joseki" for the board. Playing nirensei is actually quite refreshing, because I haven't done this since early DDK levels, and I'm rediscovering the flexibility of this formation.

I'm really glad people like the study journal. I'll try to update it with more pictures in the future.

Oh, and one last thing: I link to the Amazon pages for most of the books we use, because that's the fastest way to type in the Chinese titles and find the ones I'm looking for. If you're thinking about buying some of these books, please consider buying them from a go-specific book or web shop. As mentioned in another thread, this benefits the go community more than if all of us would just order our books on Amazon. Also, you're bound to get better customer service that way.

Thank you for your extensive answer!

Bad me could only solve problem 294 (a true classic!) and Chapter 1.7 Problem 2 on sight :O

I really like that you should find your own way when solving problems. It seems like the best approach (speed-solving for me, it is! : D).
The way you study Joseki is also quite interesting. At first it seems like memorising the bad way but after you described the book and how it also shows trickplays, overplays and such, I guess you can learn a lot about the shapes and the meaning of each move in the Joseki. Thus - maybe - subconsciously learning more than just the move order. Food for thought =)

Coincidentally, I wanted to buy the series your Joseki book is part of (the Tesuji volume should be superb!). But the books were so thick and heavy so I couldn't fit them in my luggage : (

I really wish I could buy those books in an easy and convenient way in Europe but so far I had no luck. I know some asian websites but since I don't understand the language I'm quite cautious and in the end I always decide against buying there ^^

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Oh, neat. The first problem was in B class tsumego for Tuesday last week at the NGA camp, just before "detritus got real" and the level went up quite harshly. In any case, I remember struggling with this one and after some stupid 10 minutes (I think, I didn't actually check the time it took) of reading and re-reading I had to ask Jeff... Of course, he told me "under the stones" and I was enlightened. Hope it helps others here

After this last week, I think a sane mix of some "really hard" (5 min+, 10 min+, depending a little on the person) problems plus lots (20, 50, also depending) of easy ones may be a good tsumego mix. For "really hard" what ticks more for me is tsumego where the number of options for a first move is *very* limited (like in that one, so, less than 5 or 6 options for a first move) so I know I am going to eventually solve it, given enough crunch. So, it gets me to read somewhat deep, it may get me to read somewhat wide in some points but I know I'm quite likely not gonna be let down by not figuring it out.

_________________
Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

The solutions to the problems from the previous post:
Life and Death - 294Life and Death - 386Tesuji - 7-2Tesuji - 10-7
Below you can find today's teaching game with Yan Laoshi



Yan Laoshi highlighted a recurring problem with my go today. I often give territory to my opponent to gain influence, but I then fail to use this influence in the optimal way. He likened it to people harvesting corn, wearing baskets on their back. After they get a cob of corn, they throw it in the basket. It's an efficient way of getting more corn. Now certain monkeys saw this and decided to imitate this. They got the corn cobs, and then threw them over their shoulder, failing to notice they didn't have any baskets. Get a cob of corn, throw it away. Get one more, throw it away. Basically, I'm a monkey. (The harsh things one has to endure here ) I get influence, but then let invading stones live too easily. I get more influence in another part of the board in attacking those stones though, but then fail to use that influence. I get some more, then fail to use that as well. Get the corn, throw it away. But how does one keep the corn? Improve your reading to the point where you can use the influence better. You guessed it: more problems.

As Yan Laoshi told one of the students that seldom takes breaks: studying go is like climbing a mountain. If you don't take a break every once in a while, you'll fall off before you reach the top. Very deep stuff. So after a celebratory king of the hill 10 second blitz tournament for the last night for two of the students here, the boys pulled some pranks. We found a picture of one of the previous students (we've been calling him our undercover room mate). Our room mate, however, does not smile. In fact he looks like a very serious gentleman. So we went out, had our pictures taken (in very serious, gentlemen-like fashion) and hid them somewhere in the apartment with our undercover roomie's portrait. So if you decide to come here, you may just stumble upon five very serious looking gentlemen, hidden where you least expect them.

I adore the prank. The part I did not get is if the serious room mate took part in the prank and if he did, why he still doesn't smile. Is it a physical incapacity or a pose?

Even if it's a teaching game, 5 stones against a pro is not much. We make so many mistakes that they don't have to work very hard to win, which allows them to offer you some opportunities to learn, even with 5 stones.

BTW, I found all the problems. Me too I took most time with the last one, where the first move is evident once you found it (or peeked at it). Number three is a well known shape to me. In n°2 I somehow "know" the first move, some past L&D study paying off I guess. And n° 1 is a one way street only at first it looks like a dead end, until you spot the tesuji, well known in itself but somewhat hidden "under the stones".

Thanks as always for your great reports and the wild discussions that spin off from it

Knotwilg: our "serious" undercover room mate is not a person at all. It's just a photograph of a person that studied here some time ago, but we've never met. We decided to follow his example and leave a souvenir fot future students.

Today's teaching game with Yan Laoshi. It was a relatively short game (in moves):



Afterwards the discussion focussed mainly on the difference between a crude move and a forcing move. I omitted forcing moves because I thought they were crude, and made crude moves because I thought they were forcing. When I asked him how to distinguish the two, Yan Laoshi phrased it in the following way: "A forcing move will gain you something, even if your opponent answers. A crude move won't, and often loses liberties or creates bad shape for the side who makes it."

Forcing move gaining you something no matter what reminds me of an essay about the actual meaning of kikashi on a go blog I read a while ago.

Hi Hushfield,

I'm not sure if Mr. Yan was speaking in Chinese, English,
or other languages during this review.
Did he actually use the English terms "forcing move"
and "crude move" ? Or are they an interpretation or translation
of what he said in Chinese ?

Perhaps another way is "good forcing moves," "good sente moves,"
"bad forcing moves," and "bad sente moves" ?
These seem more clear and unambiguous, to me.

A forcing move by itself seems 100% neutral to me.
Just like a sente move. It can be good for you, or bad for you.
If it's a good forcing move, you can consider to play it.
But if it's a bad forcing move, then you certainly don't.

A crude move, by definition, is not very good.
( In the English version of Ishida's joseki dictionary,
the equivalent term John Power uses is "vulgar," I think ? )
Also, a crude move can be either sente or gote, to me.
So to force the "sente" attribute to a crude move
also seems unnatural, IMO.

But thanks for all the photos and updates.

The debate about what is a forcing move has been going on for a long time, also on Sensei's Library. We never fully agreed on the term but it seems that a forcing move and a thank you move (or crude move) are both sente but the first will leave you with some potential for later usage while the opponent merely got a cemented version of what he head already. The thank you move on the other hand gives the opponent something he wanted but didn't have yet (often a connection), while your gain is very small or even negative, such as the loss of a liberty.

The difference is of course subtle, otherwise it wouldn't be a topic. An example is the good peep versus the raw peep. The good peep exerts influence or serves as a ladder breaker, while allowing the connection is not a big loss because it was mentally accepted already. The raw peep allows a connection where a cut would have been very severe. Even if the cut wasn't possible right away, forcing the connection loses all potential and is not outweighed by the influence of the peeping stone;

Hushfield
I guess is not as good because it metaphorically bumps your (stone's) head against the wall (costing you liberties) and indirectly leading to a situation where you allowed your opponent to Hane at the top of two stones, which is bad shape.
If I'm not mistaken the "correct" way to cut here would be wedging at Q6 and then attaching at S6. It is also Sente because White's corner group still has to make life.




I think you mean this from Antti Törmänen: http://gooften.net/essays/kikashi-taking-advantage/ ?

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

As well as Antti's post, I also recommend the book Beyond Forcing Moves, I wrote a little about it here: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5150.

I picked up shogi recently as well and to my surprise it is really interesting

_________________
Former shodan

That essay is badly outdated though—nowadays I see no need to explain kikashi beyond translating it as a "good exchange".

And the debate is not just among amateurs. A good contrast is between the styles of Sakata and Takagawa. Sakata tended to play kikashi early, while Takagawa tended to wait. Since they played a number of games you can see the clash of styles pretty well.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Outdated in that it contains wrong information? It still seems excellent to me, and there wasn't much in the way of modern joseki/fuseki research in there that could have changed in the last few years.

Whilst I agree saying a move is a good exchange is a decent enough simple translation of saying a move is kikashi, I feel it is a more general term that loses some of the nuance. To me (and I bow to those like you or John Fairbairn with more knowledge of Japanese and go term usage) kikashi has the feeling of the kikashi-d player suffering (and often trying to resist, like you said in the article), and also kikashi is only for a single move whereas after a 20-move-long sequence resulting in big groups dying you could say "that was a good exchange for black". Also something like the black approach of move 5 in the mini-chinese opening could be said to be played because black views it as a good exchange for his framework (similarly to the approach in bottom left before making a chinese opening), but I wouldn't call that one move a kikashi. There's not enough feeling of your opponent being forced to defend what he had already committed to (and indeed white might not choose the gentle knight's move answer). But also it's not so unambiguous that that approach for knight's move is a good exchange and some of white's plans with dealing with the mini-chinese are trying to turn it into a bad exchange and make black regret it.

P.S. congratulations on making A class!

And is totally misplaced. That is the nub of the problem.

I've no idea who first used "forcing move" in English, but whoever it was he did a disservice to western players. I imagine it was borrowed from chess, but the meaning there has next to nothing to do with go. In chess you use forcing moves to restrict your opponent's replies, thus making deep tactical calculations easier. It's a way of pruning the tree, in other words.

In go, when a kikashi arises there will be nary a tree in view, nor even a shrub or a sapling. Rather than horticulture, the focus is on pennies and pounds. Taking care of one will ensure a supply of t'other.

A typical attribute of a go position is that there is usually more than one way to use a move. A good player will wait as long as possible before deciding which way to play. The better the player, generally speaking, the more possibilities he will see, and for a pro this often translates into waiting even longer than even a strong amateur expects, but at pro level there are considerations that may force an early decision. For example, the pro may sense that the game is on the cusp of a major fight from which it will be difficult to break off. He may run out of time to play the kikashi. Or the style of play of either player may be such as to tend to reduce the possible ways to use a move. So timing is always an issue.

But, no matter whether a player has played a kikashi early or late, what has he actually done? He has not reduced the opponent's options. It's not chess. What he has done is to "cash in". He has taken what Japanese refers to as the "uchidoku". He has taken the profit while it is available, and irrespective of how meagre it is, because he doesn't want to lose it by shilly-shallying.

However, what amateurs often overlook is that the profit can be measured in more ways than taking points. The reasons for a pro making a kikashi move are more typically to do with things like overconcentrating the opponent, settling eye shape, removing aji and other nebulous things (of course it can include taking points as well...).

Let us look in some detail at a Japanese definition to get a sense of what is in the (Japanese) pro's mind: 利かし: 現在先手で打てる手で、しかもなんらかのプラスにこそなれ、損のない手を、現に打っておくこと.

Doing a sort of explication de texte, we see that it mentions twice the fact that it is a move played "now" (現). This nowness is just what we associate with cashing in. It is a move that "can be played now in sente" (現在先手で打てる手). That is important because when we cash in we want to get profit while we still can - while we still have sente.

The final verb form used (ておくこ) implies that we have done and dusted. This isn't about the future. We've played our move and the various possibilities are now finished with. Again, this is associated with cashing in. We accept that we've withdrawn our investment bonds in favour of real wonga.

Another aspect of cashing in is that we don't want to lose what we already have, and we have this in the definition. It's a "move with no loss" (損のない手). In fact it's a little more than that. When we cash in we are nearly always doing that to secure a profit, however small, and this definition says the same thing: "(a move with no loss) -- indeed one with something extra" (なんらかのプラスにこそなれ).

Everything we need to know about a kikashi is there really. In practice there is a difficulty in that in Japanese it forms part of a nexus of related words (kikashi, kikaseru, kiki, uchidoku, kimeru...) and so we see various translations or even circumlocutions which contribute to a fuzzy picture. But the real problem is simply in the term "forcing move", with the connotations - appealing for amateurs but regrettably addling - of power and sente (and that too not in its proper sense - to too many people it just means getting a kick from "I made him answer").

My suggestion is that if you wish to study kikashi (and it's a hugely fruitful way to improve) you should set before you something solid and easily grasped, such as a tablespoon, a supply of poker chips, and a bottle of whisky or whatever you tipple.

Whenever you play over a game and come to a kikashi, if you think of the word "forcing", ding yourself on the head with the spoon. If you think of the word "sente", ding three times. (You won't lose the sente - it's implicit in the kikashi, but to learn you have to forget.) You could also try pricking your thigh with an awl, as in the traditional Oriental fashion and as used by the great Fujisawa Hideyuki, for example, but elf'n'safety considerations preclude recommending that.

But whenever you see the 'effect' (the kik- bit of the word) a pro kikashi has, cash in a chip for that side. As the game proceeds, you may see the supply of chips on one side grow larger than the other side's. When that happens, you will have a clear representation of the alarm that a pro feels whenever he has been kikashi-ed. And of course you will start to understand why comments about ostensibly subtle kikashi moves tend to loom large in high-level commentaries.

And every time you see a kikashi made and also realise the various options that have now disappeared, take a congratulatory slurp of your tipple.

If you eventually slide under the table, at least you will know that you now understand go much better.