Tsumego collection that deals only with capturing races

[Hushfield]

Hi L19, I am doing some tsumego from Graded Go Problems for Beginners and I find that the ones dealing with capturing races are really good exercises. They force me to read out and count out situations which occur frequently in actual games, and in which I often find myself being somewhat lazy and wondering if there isn't a positive sacrifice sequence instead of reading out the capturing race I could have won. So in order to improve on that, I was wondering if any of you know of tsumego collections that deal exclusively with capturing races, not life and death.

[CarlJung]

I'm confused, doesn't all capturing races end in life or death?

[fwiffo]

If someone asks for a cookbook for preparing different kinds of fruit, not vegetables, it's not helpful to point out that fruits are vegetables.

[judicata]

If someone asks for a cookbook for preparing different kinds of fruit, not vegetables, it's not helpful to point out that fruits are vegetables.

Ah, yes, but if they apparently ask for one for preparing fruits that aren't vegetables?

[Hushfield]

I'm a meat person.

I probably formulated my question somewhat poorly. Most life and death problems are in one of the following formats: "Black to live", "Black to kill" or (my favorite) "Status?". Tesuji problems require you to find one move which accomplishes a specific tactical objective, e.g: "capture the cutting stones" or "link up". The type of problems I'm looking for are perhaps not so much problems, but, more simply, positions. It's a capturing race, and if it's an unsettled race then whoever goes first wins. So there is less of an element of creativity involved than with life and death or tesuji problems. I was wondering whether there exists a collection of interesting board positions in which two groups are intertwined and one will die to make the other live. I want to read out tons of such positions, and before I start making my own collection from games, I was wondering whether such a collection already exists. I added problem 137 on p50 from Graded Go Problems for Beginners, vol.2 as an example.

$$ Black to Play and Win
$$ ----------------
$$ | . . . . . . .
$$ | O O O . . . .
$$ | X X . O . . .
$$ | . . X O . O .
$$ | O O X X O . .
$$ | O X X O O . .
$$ | X X O X X . .
$$ | O O O . . . .
$$ | . . . X X . .
$$ | . X X , . . .
$$ | . . . . . . .

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$ Black to Play and Win
$$ ----------------
$$ | . . . . . . .
$$ | O O O . . . .
$$ | X X . O . . .
$$ | . . X O . O .
$$ | O O X X O . .
$$ | O X X O O . .
$$ | X X O X X . .
$$ | O O O . . . .
$$ | . . . X X . .
$$ | . X X , . . .
$$ | . . . . . . .[/go]

[freegame]

capturing races could be L&D but also tesuji or shape moves, and probably more.

I don't know any book dealing with only this subject though.

I do however have a software program called Tesuji made easy,
It has a special set of problems called "capturing stones" and another set called "capture race"
I did not use the program much, but you might want to take a look at it.

[CarlJung]

capturing races could be L&D but also tesuji or shape moves, and probably more.

I don't know any book dealing with only this subject though.

I do however have a software program called Tesuji made easy,
It has a special set of problems called "capturing stones" and another set called "capture race"
I did not use the program much, but you might want to take a look at it.

I did a quick look. There are 217 capture race problem in Tesuji Made Easy. They have subcategories as well such as
Capture race - Extend Liberties
Capture race - Ko Fight
Capture race - Reduce Opponent's [sic] Liberties
Capture race - Reduce Opponent's Liberties

5 of the 217 are in the easiest category, 19 in the second easiest. Beyond that it gets ridiculously hard. The "capturing stones" category (also with subcategories) have 618 problems but also with very few easy ones.

What I want to say with all this is that if you enjoy freakishly hard problems, Tesuji Made Easy is for you, otherwise it's mostly a frustrating set of problems.

[Bartleby]

The only books I have devoted entirely to capturing races are Chinese language books:

(1) Children's Weiqi Capture Race Skills Training. You can see a picture here:
http://www.godiscussions.com/forum/show ... tcount=430 It has 234 capturing race problems, allegedly from 3 kyu to dans in level. I haven't attempted to go through this book yet.

(2) The Weiqi Pocket book series has a book on capturing races. You can see a picture here: http://www.godiscussions.com/forum/show ... ostcount=1 (the green book in the middle). It has 240 problems, allegedly for 20 kyu to 1 dan (most of the problems are suitable for SDK players).

(3) Capture Race Skills. You can see a picture here: http://mohsart.se/bocker-pa-kinesiska/3 ... 44588.html. It has 144 problems. I'm not really sure of the level, but it starts out in the kyu ranks and the problems near the end look like they might be dan level.

[Hushfield]

Thank you for the tips. Freegame: 'Tesuji Made Easy' looks nice, but as CarlJung pointed out, the level for those problems seems a bit out of my league (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). However, I am a bit suspicious of software that still describes its recommendations as "486 or better, Windows 95/Windows NT or higher". And the website design doesn't really help either. What can I say? I'm a consumer.

Bartleby: Books! Now those are old-school yumminess. Do you own these books? If so, where did you get them?

[averell]

I think these should be pointed out too, not problem books as such but still useful:

http://senseis.xmp.net/?CountingLiberti ... uringRaces

And the relevant parts i find most useful are also here:
http://senseis.xmp.net/?TheSecondBookOfGo

Actually i think the articles this was made of are somewhere on the web too, but i can't find it now.

Anyway, it provides some useful rules that save quite some reading in specific situations.

[freegame]

@ Hushfield
It runs fine on Windows. I have (had) it running on XP, Vista and 7.
but the problems are indeed not easy, and there are not a lot of them (in your specific topic) for the price of the software.

[Hushfield]

Yes, the pricetag, did put me off a bit. That's money that I could spend on books. The Richard Hunter book looks like a nice theoretical take on the topic, but I already own the second book of go, and read through it twice about a year ago. Maybe I should read it again.

[Bartleby]

Bartleby: Books! Now those are old-school yumminess. Do you own these books? If so, where did you get them?

I got them through Zhen Zu (he also sells go stuff on E-Bay as goplayer2006) a while ago. He used to sometimes take special orders if you bought a bunch of books at once. I don't know if he still does though.

I think he sells book #2 on my list on E-bay, but as part of a group of three.

[daal]

I think I have something for you, Hushfield. In it's Entrance level in the category "Basic 900," Gochild has 147 capturing race problems. If that's not enough, in the Advance level, there are six chapters of capturing race tactics. Enjoy!

[Hushfield]

I assume this is the Gochild you're referring to:http://gochild2009.appspot.com/? This is an absolute gold mine! Thank you very much for sharing, this looks like many hours of exercise.