Major works of Japanese tsumego

[tchan001]

We all know there are lots of tsumego books in Japan, but who are the top 10 modern Japanese tsumego composers and what are the books they are known for?

I have adapted a list from a Chinese site and recompiled it with Japanese character names of the people and the books. This should cover most of the major known works of Japanese tsumego of the modern period plus some others.

Please find the list at my blog at this page:
http://tchan001.wordpress.com/japanese- ... e-tsumego/

You can also access it via the "Go Books - Japanese" menu along the top of the blog.

[John Fairbairn]

It's certainly useful to have such a list. Lovers of the genre might also like to hunt out a long series in Weiqi Tiandi earlier this year on this very subject. It was by Sun Zhigang 3-dan, and he also did some other excellent pieces on how to create tsume-go problems.

It may be related to the site tchan mentions but Sun goes into considerable depth and gives reasons for the selections. It's been a few decades since I've seen such articles. The previous times were when Maeda Nobuaki was in full flow in Kido, and (very occasionally) when Fujisawa Hideyuki gave forth.

Fujisawa was much the most precise about how to evaluate a good tsume-go. As I recall, lots of choices for the starting move was an important criterion for him (the summing up in my memory is that he treated go problems like chess problems). In general, though, I think the most highly rated criterion, which Maeda probably shared, is that the defender should have several resources. I imagine most of us have often looked at a problem and declared it "done", only to look at the answer and find that, yes we got it right, but only half right. We were the hunter and hadn't thought to switch places with the quarry, so we hadn't looked at some alternative defences. We might have still seen the right line if we had switched places, but the important fault is that we didn't look. Japanese tsume-go setters seem often, and very usefully, to focus on this kind of problem. In contrast, many of the classical Chinese problems favour the single wow move.

There is another common way of categorising problems, and that is to rate them according to how many themes they contain (sequentially). Broadly speaking, one theme is easy, two themes is hard, three themes is very hard. Within each theme, the degree of difficulty can obviously be refined according to how many possible moves there are. (By theme I mean either single moves, such as those that threaten to connect two ways, or long sequences such as the tombstone tesuji which once you know them can be treated as single units).

The first line of tchan's post is worth noting carefully. He rightly says these are works a player is known for. This is far from saying that they are collections of great problems. In fact, the first work on tchan's list, Hashimoto's Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road to the North), is set only at middle kyu level. The book's charm comes rather from the fact that there is a problem for various stages of Basho's journey. In double fact you could even call it a pot boiler, in that it was a sequel to a popular earlier book on Hokusai's 53 Stages. One thing I like about both these books is that he begins the first by saying that you don't become strong at go by doing btsume-go - you actually have to study go - and in the later one he begins in almost the same way (as if he had been upbraided for his earlier comment) by insisting that he has not changed his mind!

Many amateurs ask what is the best way to study tsume-go. I'd wager there are almost as many opinions in the books on tchan's list as there are books. But Hashimoto's view, in the two books above, is, I suggest, instructive. He favours not rushing through the problems but leisurely doing one or maybe two a day, savouring each one. This, of course, reflects the titles of these books. Basho's long trek each day might culminate in a single haiku of 17 syllables, but he's probably been savouring it all day, trying out various combinations in his head. A tsume-go can be likened to a haiku and savoured in the same leisurely way.

This is quite different from the intense approach of glaring at a problem until it reveals its solution, which many in the west use. The Basho-type approach of the Japanese, however, is probably just as successful, surely more enjoyable, and maybe even leads to a deeper understanding. It does, however, seem to presuppose being interested in go as opposed to being interested in one's ranking.

Either way, I think study of the books on tchan's list would be very rewarding.

[ethanb]

long sequences such as the tombstone tesuji

Is this another name for the "stone pillar" tesuji?

(sacrifice two stones from the 2nd line, throw in and squeeze - easiest "common" example I can think of is in a trick variation of the Magic Sword joseki)

[dankenzon]

I must say that the Maeda books are not only good but also artistic! there's a feeling of surprise in the solutions that I've never found in other tsumego collections.

In my case, just making a study and drill in the book 1, made me improve my reading. I am now about to get over it again and work in book two.

Dkzn

[p2501]

@tchan001: Is an account required to access your blog, I am somehow required to login, following that link.

[Dante31]

Are there any plans to open up that magical blog again? I want to see that wonderful list

[Bill Spight]

Many amateurs ask what is the best way to study tsume-go. I'd wager there are almost as many opinions in the books on tchan's list as there are books. But Hashimoto's view, in the two books above, is, I suggest, instructive. He favours not rushing through the problems but leisurely doing one or maybe two a day, savouring each one. This, of course, reflects the titles of these books. Basho's long trek each day might culminate in a single haiku of 17 syllables, but he's probably been savouring it all day, trying out various combinations in his head. A tsume-go can be likened to a haiku and savoured in the same leisurely way.

This is quite different from the intense approach of glaring at a problem until it reveals its solution, which many in the west use.

Gee, I haven't met anybody who uses the glare technique. Did Dirty Harry make shodan? "Do you feel lucky, punk?" Maybe some people take the Jack Bauer approach of torturing the answer out of the problem under a ticking time bomb scenario (aka byo-yomi). "If you don't tell me what I want to know, then it'll just be a question of how much you want it to hurt."