Review: Mastering Basic Corner Shapes - Step-by-step

[RobertJasiek]

For basic corner LD shapes, an encyclopedia would attempt to list all of them. An Ishida-like book might do that and give lots of answer diagrams and text. A book like Capturing Races 2 - Tactical Reading would be Ishida-like but furthermore also state in the text all those relevant variations that are not shown as diagrams but one must read when solving a problem.

For this book, I have said that one must read about two or three times as many relevant variations as shown in the diagrams. There is often much empty space besides text. I think that the book could easily have included such relevant, currently missing variations in the text to enable the reader verification whether his tactical reading is sufficiently complete. However, when you say that the book contained about the right number of variations you disagree and seem to express that such would hurt, rather than help, the reader with verifying whether his tactical reading is sufficiently complete.

Life and death problem and answer books with only small selections of variations needed for verifying sufficiently complete tactical reading greatly slowed down my improvement on tactical life and death reading and prevented my improvement beyond 3 dan. Only when I overcame the selective variations style of life and death books like Mastering Basic Corner Shapes - Step-by-step and the implied teaching that selective consideration of variations would be enough and I changed my life and death tactical reading style to exploring every relevant variation, I could then raise my life and death skill to 5 dan.

You and John, however, praise the way too selective variations of the book and thereby contribute to the persistence of overwhelming teaching that first greatly slowed down my progress and then prevented my further improvement.

Selective relevant variations of life and death enable limited teaching and some improvement for kyus and maybe low dans. Rather complete relevant variations of life and death also enable further improvement towards and for high dans.

Too many life and death problem and answer books are written in the style of tesuji books, for which a comparatively small selection of relevant variations is sufficient because, for tesuji problems, such often includes every relevant variation and therefore is sufficient. For life and death, however, there are often many more variations whose tactical reading is mandatory.

Please reconsider whether you want to disrespect teaching of most relevant variations!

There is little wrong with presenting some relevant variations in an easily accessible style, like in this book. What is wrong is the too many relevant variations that are not mentioned at all, not even in the text.

[xela]

...I think that the book could easily have included such relevant, currently missing variations in the text to enable the reader verification whether his tactical reading is sufficiently complete. However, when you say that the book contained about the right number of variations you disagree and seem to express that such would hurt, rather than help, the reader with verifying whether his tactical reading is sufficiently complete.

I did not say that, and I did not mean to imply it. "Sufficiently complete" is a very subjective standard. Even computers do not read every variation. I think that reading is only one of many skills that this book teaches. You did ask me about goals :-)

...You and John, however, praise the way too selective variations of the book and thereby contribute to the persistence of overwhelming teaching that first greatly slowed down my progress and then prevented my further improvement.

In my opinion, there's more than one way to learn go, and the type of book that helps you improve may be very different from the type of book that helps me improve.

[RobertJasiek]

"Sufficiently complete" is a very subjective standard.

Rather it is close to an objective standard! In every case of doubt, whenever one is unsure whether application of specific pruning methods is valid, one must fall back to, e.g., the method of regular tactical reading (verfication of at least one successful optimal next move or else of all failing next moves etc.), which is known to produce the correct result.

there's more than one way to learn go, and the type of book that helps you improve may be very different from the type of book that helps me improve.

Surely there are different ways to learn. However, apart from valid pruning methods, there is only one truth about what variations and decisions are mandatory (or optional among several alternative mandatory variations) to correctly decide life and death status. In particular, apart from valid pruning methods (such as applying knowledge of known (e.g. nakade) shapes, ignoring obviously inferior moves and obvious failures if and only if such is not wishful thinking), each decision verifying non-existence of a successful next move requires checking all possible next moves. Apart from valid pruning methods, different learning / teaching methods may not provide shortcuts for this because then status "verification" can be, and in practical application during games very often is, wrong.

[John Fairbairn]

For this book, I have said that one must read about two or three times as many relevant variations as shown in the diagrams. There is often much empty space besides text. I think that the book could easily have included such relevant, currently missing variations in the text to enable the reader verification whether his tactical reading is sufficiently complete. However, when you say that the book contained about the right number of variations you disagree and seem to express that such would hurt, rather than help, the reader with verifying whether his tactical reading is sufficiently complete.

Life and death problem and answer books with only small selections of variations needed for verifying sufficiently complete tactical reading greatly slowed down my improvement on tactical life and death reading and prevented my improvement beyond 3 dan. Only when I overcame the selective variations style of life and death books like Mastering Basic Corner Shapes - Step-by-step and the implied teaching that selective consideration of variations would be enough and I changed my life and death tactical reading style to exploring every relevant variation, I could then raise my life and death skill to 5 dan.

Robert, I think you have shot down your own argument. You think the books you mention have failed you. In fact they have inspired you.

As what seems like a "bottle half empty" person you have seen the lack of extra variations in books as an annoyance - but you have nevertheless made the decision to do the extra work yourself. Other people (the vast majority, I'd say) are "bottle half full" people and if the contents of the bottle are tasty, they will look forward to the extra slurps - and do the extra slurping themselves. Being in a cheery mood, they may be even more likely to do the extra work than the half-empty people, get more enjoyment out of it, and so learn more from it.

The task of a go writer is to get people thinking of the game as a half-full bottle. That is what this book does. Even the white space you disdain contributes to that effect. Newspaper, magazine and book design is to a large degree founded on the use of white space to create a mood. For example, magazines designed to be read over a leisurely weekend use white space far more than newspapers intended for busy commuters.

Pounding people with facts tends not to create a good, inspirational mood. I was amazed when I first encountered the masochistic tendencies of some fellow students at university lectures, where they tried desperately to write down every word the lecturer said. If they failed, they would collar other students in the common room and beg to copy their notes. Once they had a full set of notes, they went off the pub. Some of us preferred to take brief notes in our own words, thus having time to think during the lecture. Afterwards we went off to the library. Then to the pub.

Whatever floats your boat, I suppose. Tasked with the argument that writing down the lecturer's words was a waste of time, some would respond that by citing back the lecturer's words in exams would score higher marks. I never found any lecturers who would believe that, and in fact noted that they would in fact often make efforts to interrupt the mindless copying process. I was interested to hear from a grandson that he noted the same thing when he started university. He has a lecturer, considered zany by most students, who has a habit of stopping for a while. He goes to a window and just gazes out. My grandson soon realised that the guy wasn't being loopy. He was waking some students up. They would be like suddenly alert cats: what's he up to, what am I missing, is he mad, etc. But he was also giving the students' unconscious brain elements time to absorb difficult facts, to make associations with already absorbed facts, and to pigeon-hole the new facts correctly. The same process we all use when we go to sleep. I think, Robert, that in general you overrate the conscious part of the brain and vastly underrate the unconscious part. Is that why you are stuck at 4-dan?

If you are on the opposite side to a student/reader, i.e. you are the lecturer/writer, you need to give your charge motivation, time and opportunity to absorb what you say then act on it, even if that means (rightly) putting your book away and doing extra work on their own. If that happens, you have succeeded. You have become an educator - and remember that that is what the word means: you have "led someone out." If that doesn't happen, you have only produced a reference book. You have become a lexicographer rather than an educator, and dictionaries - while valuable (I have over 300) - are not normally as interesting or inspirational as educational books. In other words, writing a book that appeals to most people is not about showing how much the writer knows, but about how much the reader can learn if he takes the opportunity to follow the path outlined to Extra Work Farm." I believe the book in question here does offer an appealing entree for a city boy into the wider world of pigs, geese, kye and yowes - or tinkering with tractors and combine harvesters for those of different inclinations.

The ways one creates interest or inspiration are several. A trivial way is in that sentence. I could have said 'various' instead of the rarer 'several'. I could have used the more normal but boring word order "There are several ways to ...." But I tired to perk the reader up. The same thing happens in the book here, and I was fascinated that xela noticed the slightly oddly early mention of double ko, too. (Note the -ly -ly -ly, as well as this parenthesis itself to grab attention and give the reader's subconsciousness time to recall their own views on double kos.) I treated this as just a motivational reminder to the reader to say, "There's a lot more interesting stuff to come than what we are doing at the moment."

At least, that's the sort of thing that registers with me (and xela, apparently). I remember two inspirational things from school - still fresh some 70 years on. One was a Russian teacher talking about ballet. Which came up because ballet was most associated with Russia at the time. He told us a story of his time doing National Service in the army. In his squad was a professional ballet dancer, and the drill sergeant assumed he was effete. He was determined to crack him. So the PE exercises went on and on and on. All the squaddies, and the drill sergeant himself, were collapsing on the ground, whilst the dancer was fresh as a daisy and would do the odd entrechat six between exercises to keep his muscles warm. I took many lessons from that. One was not to take other people at face value, but the other, more important for me, was the benefit of the hard work the dancer had already put in. In fact, I even underrated it, as I learned much later when I became friends with a Royal Ballet dancer. The one lesson I didn't learn, mind you, was how to work hard myself!

The other school inspiration I recall was from a history teacher. Most history teachers expect their charges to learn dates so as to pass exams. This teacher instead wanted us to learn that history teaches us lessons. I thus soaked up with huge enjoyment his accounts of Bismarck and Metternich but still haven't a clue when the Congress of Vienna was - despite "learning" the date many times and despite visiting the important sites.

It is also possible, or necessary in some cases, to make much more overt attempts to amuse and/or inspire go readers. I often loosely call this "entertainment" but however you dress it up most professional writers use the technique of inserting anecdotes or asides of one sort or another. The purpose, rather like the double ko reference above, is often to produce a change of pace (to allow absorption of previous facts), or to provide a different way of looking at a new or difficult concept. All readers are different and many will appreciate a sidelight. Rigidly defining 'connection+1' and 'connection+2' may work for some readers, but most find that stodgy. Kids, for example, might prefer to be told that groups can hold hands tightly but sometimes it's OK to stand just far enough part to touch hands.

Under the heading of anecdotes, more often than not, comes the journalistic (or novelistic) mantra of "there's nowt as interesting as other folk." That means that most people get more fun, and so ultimately more benefit, from reading commentaries that involve players with fascinating personalities and intriguing views on moves than from looking at soulless printouts from AI bots. Even those who spend a lot of time with AI data desperately crave to know what other people think about this new move or that percentage difference.

This is not all about words, incidentally. A good composer will structure his music in ways that are designed to draw in and inspire listeners. The journey through a piece may be made more interesting by an unexpected or novel change of key, or change of rhythm, or new harmonies. Or the composer may reference a well-know folk song to establish a well-shared mood in his listeners. A performer or conductor will then add a further layer of interpretation. The end result, if it works ideally, is to make the piece not just entertaining but memorable. It becomes embedded in our subconscious (or becomes an ear worm if we don't allow time for the absorption process!)

Surely there are different ways to learn. However, apart from valid pruning methods, there is only one truth about what variations and decisions are mandatory (or optional among several alternative mandatory variations) to correctly decide life and death status. In particular, apart from valid pruning methods (such as applying knowledge of known (e.g. nakade) shapes, ignoring obviously inferior moves and obvious failures if and only if such is not wishful thinking), each decision verifying non-existence of a successful next move requires checking all possible next moves. Apart from valid pruning methods, different learning / teaching methods may not provide shortcuts for this because then status "verification" can be, and in practical application during games very often is, wrong.

I think this quote illustrates Robert's lack of understanding of the "other" looser way of looking at things. Those who advocate the intuitive way of doing problems do NOT deny the need to do verification. Nor are they seeking shortcuts. They are seeking time-efficient processes in a time-constrained game. They want not mathematical perfection (the date of the Congress of Vienna) but the biggest bang for the fewest bucks (the lesson from history). The verification element has to be put in its place as a supporting role and not be allowed to take centre stage.

I had a very insightful experience a couple of days ago that spoke volumes about this. I was inputting some data about classical go problems. I was using old texts which give solutions on the same diagram or page and which do not say who it is to play. Initially, I took a bottle-half empty approach to this latter omission, but after being forced to look at the positions in detail to work out for myself who played first, I soon reverted to my more normal bottle-half-full approach. What I realised was that whenever I am told it is "Black to play" I start by looking at potential candidate moves for Black. I may then try to be "clever" by looking for an additional unexpected candidate or two. I can then often solve the problem in a reasonable time. So that approach "works."

But when I had to look at the problem intently to see who played first, I noticed that my thought process was completely different. Instead of candidate moves I was looking for weaknesses or plus points (e.g. he's very close to the corner so there may be liberty problems, or he can make an eye in the corner). In other words, I was starting off by looking rather deeper than first move. I was astounded at how much easier it made the problem, and even more so how much easier it made the verification process. What I was doing was something rather akin to an alphabeta search instead of a minimax search. It got me to thinking this maybe explained why the ancients were so good at tsumego, and whether we should likewise be omitting "Black to play" from problems. I haven't made my mind up on that yet. I think the mental process differs in subtle ways from doing status problems, but I believe it is generally agreed that even they are an ultimately more efficient way of learning tsumego.

I say all this at some length, Robert, not really to criticise your views but rather to encourage (inspire even!) you to ask you to consider why so many people do things differently from you. I hope this post doesn't elicit the your usual list of one-sentence quotes with rebuttals which are not really rebuttals but just statements of your different way of doing things. Do ask yourself why it is that so many people, including people who have become 9-dan pro at tsumego, have preferred and managed to enjoy go's entertaining scenic routes rather than travel through tunnels. Remember, there's nowt as interesting as other folk.

[RobertJasiek]

I hope this post doesn't elicit the your usual list of one-sentence quotes

You do not determine my reply style. I choose short quotes this time to enable reference to what you have written and decouple it from long, rather unrelated meta-discussion.

Robert, I think you have shot down your own argument. You think the books you mention have failed you. In fact they have inspired you.

These books I mention are essenially all life and death problem and answer books, except for mine with their rather complete variations and explicit decision-making. The other books have not inspired me in the manner you suggest. For years, I read them in good faith that their often strong authors would direct me well in their selective presentation of only the most "exciting" variations and that all I would need to do was just to accumulate enough bits of "exciting" knowledge on shapes, tesuji, timing and the like. My faith has been disappointed, much of the time was wasted, the "click" moment did not appear but it was a dead end of learning.

It was not these books that inspired me but it was my own, independent thinking from which I developed the insight that proper tactical reading is needed. Rather, the impact of these books was a delay before I got the courage to think about L+D problem solving independently. I have always been a creative, analytical thinker but, when, as a kyu or low dan, faced with hundreds or thousands of books all having the same selective, accumulate knowledge, develop L+D intuition style, my mind was buried by the traditional dogma. The earth was flat and I had to recognise that it is curved, so to say.

The task of a go writer is to get people thinking of the game as a half-full bottle. That is what this book does.

Books should teach more than that. One of the tasks of life and death books can be telling the reader what verifies something as the solution; this the book does not do. Even if a book intentionally skips this but wants to get readers doing it on their own, the book must state such a command and explain what is expected from the reader's thinking. Instead of all the neuro-science things, the book should have, at least briefly, described regular tactical reading. James Davies knew better (Tesuji, introduction).

Robert, that in general you overrate the conscious part of the brain and vastly underrate the unconscious part. Is that why you are stuck at 4-dan?

5 dan - not 4 dan. (Spare me with rating systems.)

Stuck at 5 dan since 1998 is one description. The reality, however, is that I have become significantly stronger since then. My 1998 5 dan opponents were considerably weaker than my 2023 5 dan opponents. My 1998 5 dan play was much weaker than my 2023 5 dan play: then I played some "random moves", my strategy was driven by futurology (according to Vladmir Danek 6 dan and Christoph Gerlach 6 dan, that is, wishful thinking) instead of reasoning, my positional judgement was almost non-existent, my endgame was weak etc. - now it is contrary, my reading is better and my knowledge is very much greater. The overall level of playing strengths has improved not only at the very top while some not improving players have quit.

From 10 kyu to 3 dan, I improved very radiply in 17 months also very much because I replaced my subconscious by conscious decisions! The contrary of what you recommend me. If anything, there must be more and better efficiency (quality per time) of the conscious thinking.

motivation, time and opportunity to absorb what you say then act on it, even if that means (rightly) putting your book away and doing extra work on their own.

Yes, and I also tell such my students, among which the fastest improving (4 ranks in 10 lessons) are those studying the most.

Those who advocate the intuitive way of doing problems do NOT deny the need to do verification. Nor are they seeking shortcuts. They are seeking time-efficient processes in a time-constrained game. They want [...] the biggest bang for the fewest bucks [...] The verification element [...]

IIRC, in over three decades, this is the first clear statement by a proponent of the "intuitive" way that conscious verification is needed. Good to see some progress! :)

Do ask yourself why it is that so many people, including people who have become 9-dan pro at tsumego, have preferred and managed to enjoy go's entertaining scenic routes rather than travel through tunnels.

Eh, what? I am weak at deciphering metaphors. "scenic routes" = intuition, "tunnels" = depreciated conscious thinking?! If so, 1) the Asian insei education favoured subconscious thinking and 2) some (incl. 9 dan) pros do (also or favourably) use conscious verification or calculation, as they have told me. In particular, they (of type (2)) emphasise it for tactical reading and endgame calculation. Some type (1) pros have admitted their frequent lack of conscious thinking when they described why they could not explain some of their go theory to me.

[Javaness2]

I remember reading the 1971 Honinbo Tournament book. It always left a bitter taste in my mouth that I wasn't Honinbo tournament level after I'd finished it.

[xela]

Update: this book is now available on Amazon! Links at https://forums.online-go.com/t/masterin ... n-8p/54097

[kvasir]

I haven't tried to read this entire thread just now and I don't think I did back when it was active. This is because it seems to go off topic.

But it is a great book and Robert's reviews are always useful. Not least because they are consistent and earnest.

This book is really good in many ways. Its main weakness is in one dimension, the number of volumes, there is only one volume. The strengths are primarily the presentation and a fairly consistent level of detail.

It might be useful to compare this book to the Eba Hiroki dictionary of basic life and death (published in 1992), which has 11 sections on basic corner shapes and 2 on side shapes, and it is available for free online (in Japanese). The level of detail in Mastering Basic Corner Shapes is much more conductive to studying the entire book and the shapes, as well as the focus of the presentation, are much more practical. ... I'm trying to say that it is doable to get this book, study it and learn the entire thing. This would be very difficult if every shape was delved into at the same detail as some other works do.

The exact presentation desired by each reader will by necessity be different, because people are different, but I predict that many people will like this book. Maybe 30 years from now we can compare other books favorable to this one but for now it is probable the best one on the subject.

[dfan]

I've just read the first five chapters or so but it looks very good so far. My one wish is that a native English speaker had proofread it. It's actually all perfectly fine with the exception of a ton of run-on sentences, which I'm allergic to. (Example: "Black 1 has to be considered as an approach move, in order to make this move, Black needed to ignore a ko threat but the ko is not finished yet, the situation now becomes that of a direct ko.") But the content is great. I'll get over it.