Learning Tesuji

hettingerjm · Post by **hettingerjm** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 2:32 pm

How do you all practice learning new tesuji? i did a few searches but didn't see the specific answer I am looking for. I am going through the Davies' Tesuji book right now which is amazing, but this is my second time going through it because I didn't really learn all the tesuji nor can I spot all of them. I have found a few problems of the specific tesuji on goproblems.com such as "loose ladder tesuji" or "nose tesuji" but many I can not find anywhere else, and 2 problems/1 example is not enough to truly learn the variations of it.

An example would be the "cross-cut" tesuji. There are no problems on goproblems.com

So what is your practical regimen for learning new tesuji. Do you study the book slower, and look for each specific tesuji in the games you play? I feel like part of the problem may be trying to finish the book too fast.

Anyways, I appreciate all the tips!

illluck · Post by **illluck** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 2:39 pm

I think (at least for ddk/sdk) many opportunities arise for most tesuji that you are learning about during games, and probably trying to apply what you have learned in games would be a good way to reinforce your knowledge.

p.s. gross-dirt tesuji?

hettingerjm · Post by **hettingerjm** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 2:51 pm

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

would be an example, but there are not really any problems I could find.

Koroviev · Post by **Koroviev** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 2:59 pm

Cross-cut tesuji?

hettingerjm · Post by **hettingerjm** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:09 pm

I'm wondering if it would be more efficient to memorize the tesuji by name, make a list and look for opportunities in the games I play on KGS, or just reread the book a few times.

shapenaji · Post by **shapenaji** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:34 pm

Try out "Get strong at tesuji"

It's a very different layout from the Davies book, and I think the differing layout enables better retention.

My problem with the Davies book is actually that it's so well categorized. In general, when you look at a board position, I don't think you should be thinking "Okay, which L group is this?"

you should see 10 ways of attacking a given corner, just based on the shape of it.

Get Strong at Tesuji just gives you tons of shape problems, and over time you get a feel for certain kinds. But because it's randomized, you can't just rely on your categorizing monkey brain to get you through it, you have to see how the positions work.

illluck · Post by **illluck** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:39 pm

Gross-dirt is such an ugly name, I cannot imagine why that was used since it isn't even relevant to the tesuji XD

In Chinese it's Xiangsi Duan (severing affections?), which imo is a much nicer name.

jts · Post by **jts** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:48 pm

There's a book of great tesuji problems, but I can't remember whether it was called "Get strong at tesuji" or "501 Tesuji". (Maybe there are two books like that?)

(On preview, I'm guessing this is the same book shapenaji likes.)

There are also several volumes of "Lee Chang Ho Tesuji", which I've heard several people recommend highly, but I haven't done those. It's basically the same format at "Get strong at tesuji" but with fewer problems and more explanation of the answers.

Graded Go Problems for Beginners is mostly life and death problems, but each section also has some tesuji problems iirc. Kageyama's "Fundamentals" has a good section on Tesuji.

There are also books like "Tesuji and Anti-suji" which cover similar ground (that is, similar to Davies' "Tesuji"), but from different angles. Seeing the same tesuji presented in a completely different way can be very useful.

You can also get your games reviewed. A lot of the most important comments on your games will be about tesuji that you missed.

Past that, you may have to wait a while. Knowing some tesuji at 12k is great, but if you were to master them all you wouldn't be 12k anymore! The best way to practice them is to play more games. You have to be playing at a certain level in order to create situations where tesuji will materialize on the board. And often, the tesuji that you want to use never appears on the board at all! Instead, the tesuji the last threat lurking behind a long line of variations, so to use the tesuji you need to be reading pretty deeply (or have great instincts). For exactly this reason, even though I first read Tesuji when I was ~10k I wasn't able to use the very first tesuji in the book until I was 4k. But it's still awesomely fun when the chance comes. Don't get discouraged!

hettingerjm · Post by **hettingerjm** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:51 pm

That makes a lot of sense, and is probably a big part of the problem. I try to memorize stuff to expedite my growth, but I need to just play and have fun, and It will become a lot easier as my reading improves as well.

Thanks for the advice, I am going to try out the "Get Strong at Tesuji" next.

shapenaji · Post by **shapenaji** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:57 pm

jts wrote:Past that, you may have to wait a while. Knowing some tesuji at 12k is great, but if you were to master them all you wouldn't be 12k anymore! The best way to practice them is to play more games. You have to be playing at a certain level in order to create situations where tesuji will materialize on the board. And often, the tesuji that you want to use never appears on the board at all! Instead, the tesuji the last threat lurking behind a long line of variations, so to use the tesuji you need to be reading pretty deeply (or have great instincts). For exactly this reason, even though I first read Tesuji when I was ~10k I wasn't able to use the very first tesuji in the book until I was 4k. But it's still awesomely fun when the chance comes. Don't get discouraged!

See, I think that might be part of the problem, when you know the name of a bunch of tesujis, you are going to tend to try to implement "named" tesujis, rather than playing the board in the best way. It could really stymie your growth because you won't have a sense for just how many unnamed tesujis there are, or how to go about finding them.

I read Get Strong at Tesuji when I was 12k (I bet it's the same book you're talking about, very short explanations, with an emphasis on just doing problems quickly), and suddenly it opened up this idea that tesuji were all over the place, and that I could make up my own.

The search for tesuji is a really powerful learning tool.

hettingerjm · Post by **hettingerjm** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:01 pm

shapenaji wrote:See, I think that might be part of the problem, when you know the name of a bunch of tesujis, you are going to tend to try to implement "named" tesujis, rather than playing the board in the best way. It could really stymie your growth because you won't have a sense for just how many unnamed tesujis there are, or how to go about finding them.

I read Get Strong at Tesuji when I was 12k (I bet it's the same book you're talking about, very short explanations, with an emphasis on just doing problems quickly), and suddenly it opened up this idea that tesuji were all over the place, and that I could make up my own.

The search for tesuji is a really powerful learning tool.

<---- This is going to change the way I play and study. Seriously Awesome advice... Appreciate it.

jts · Post by **jts** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:10 pm

By the way, just as an example of why deeper reading and looking at tesuji from different perspectives helps you find more of them in games:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$c First Diagram $$ --------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . O O X X X . . . . . . O O X X X . . | $$ | O . X O O . . . . , . O . X O O . . . | $$ | . . X X . O 2 4 . . . . . X X . O 2 4 | $$ | . . . . . 1 3 . . . . . . . . . 1 3 . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . O . . . . . . . . . . O . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

You aren't quite getting what the cross-cut is, because if you were you would see that you flipped the problem in the upper left. W can run away towards the center in the upper left, but he can't in the upper right; he needs to connect to the nearest stone instead, and that's why black can exploit white's painful shape.

(But then also, the situation on the left and right are very different in other ways... in the upper right, black is afraid of getting trapped in the corner and killed {so he needs to capture stones to wriggle out}, while in the upper left white is afraid of getting trapped in the corner and killed!)

I'm not trying to make you feel bad for throwing together the diagram quickly, and I know you just included the upper left for illustrative purposes. But when other aspects of your go skills catch up, ideas like identifying which group is in danger, which stones need to be captured, where they can run to, and so on will come to you much more quickly, and you will understand tesuji like this at a more satisfying level.

Uberdude · Post by **Uberdude** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 6:02 pm

Shapenaji makes a good point about looking for your own tesuji, not just trying to find standard tesujis, though of course studying these has general shape/reading benefits. But sometimes knowing tesuji can even be a downside. My favourite tesuji is [sl=TanukiNoHaraTsuzumi]patting the racoon's belly[/sl] and my almost obsession with it has made me so eager to play it that I have now done so twice in tournament games, both where it did work, but so did the simple block, and the simple block was better because it avoided me getting squeezed. But the bad position on the board is somewhat compensated by the amusement I get from my opponent's expression :lol:

My bad tesuji is move 48 in the below.

illluck · Post by **illluck** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 8:52 pm

Yeah, I do the exact same thing - whenever that two stones shape appear my eyes shift to first line and I'll play it even when the block works.

p.s. The Chinese name for that tesuji is also better imo :p

RobertJasiek · Post by **RobertJasiek** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 11:39 pm

jts wrote:if you were to master them all you wouldn't be 12k anymore! The best way to practice them is to play more games.

The best way of learning tesuji especially at that level is to read some tesuji book. It made me 2 ranks stronger almost instantly. By just playing, I did not achieve the same.

shapenaji wrote:when you know the name of a bunch of tesujis, you are going to tend to try to implement "named" tesujis, rather than playing the board in the best way.

Therefore I teach all move types instead of only tesuji types. There is no sharp line between ordinary move and tesuji. Each move type is important.

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