Yes. Life-and-Death. Tesuji.

I have found the following to be good problem books.

1001 Life and Death Problems:Brief explanations about the solution but no variations are provided. The reader is encouraged to work out why the solution is best.

The Graded Go Problems for Beginners series: Has problems associated with all aspects of play. Fuseki, endgame, capturing races, setting up Ko etc.
They do go into variations, to varying degrees. Including multiple ways that work, most likely wrong answers etc.

Additionally I have a copy of and have heard good things about, Get Strong at Tesuji. I've been busy with 1001 and Graded problems so have not started it yet.
Like 1001 L&D it provides one answer to the problem along with an explanation of said answer. (It has been recommended to me to pair Get Strong at Tesuji with, another book rather simply titled Tesuji. This is a theory book, but I don't have a copy of that yet.)

I'd say get all of them.. However
1001: if your groups die on you a lot
GSAT:Great help to fighting(I'd assume)
GGPFB: less in depth but broader treatments of everything.

Thanks Ed, I have Tesuji already, I'll pick up L&D most likely in my next order.

My groups don't die on me a lot (I do a fair amount of L&D tsumego and when they do die on me it's usually an eye space problem because I messed up in the fighting) but L&D is good for killing other people's groups.

Tesuji I need to work on badly. I got depressed while reading Tesuji by Davies and it fell to the wayside I'm afraid. I need to get it out and get stuck into it again. The most common advice I've seen for ddks is to read Tesuji but don't do the problems yet and do the one star problems in GSAT for practice.

GGPFB 2 is coming out for SmartGo books on the iPad so I'm holding off on that for the moment.

I don't mean any particular book, I mean ANY book on tesujis that's suitable for your level. Same for L&D books.
In particular, Davies' Elementary series are for around 5k or better, so you may have to struggle with them a bit.

Thanks for clearing that up Ed.

An uneven game but a win is a win I suppose. Again, played partially while depressed, partially while not and partially while again. I'm sure it's full of plenty of errors, many probably with that seki that occurred when I probably should have gotten a big kill. Including a terrible lapse in concentration during the end game.

The game was 6 stones as that was the difference in our KGS ranks at the time this started 3 weeks ago, when he was 10k and I 16k, now I'm 14k. Go figure KGS's volatile ranking system. We're currently playing a 5 stone game on OGS.





I'm attaching this in-progress game (so I do not want any pointers on how to play going forward) to give people an idea of the difference in play style between 3 weeks ago and this week. I'm quite interested in people's opinions on the change and whether it's noticeable or not to an outsider. I'm not interested in a review of this yet just whether people think I'm actually changing like I think I am or not.





(I realise B46 was a mistake and that I should have taken out the potential eye first, but live and learn and all that)

B30 is a move I don't think I'd have tried before this week. Maybe I'm wrong though. I do however think its timing was way off.

Thanks Ed.


So I think I was approaching tsumego in completely the wrong fashion. I was looking to drill as many as possible each day for pattern recognition rather than using them for reading practice. I'm going to try and approach tsuemgo now as reading practice and focus on improving my ability to read out sequences rather than process problems as quickly as possible. I think this will improve my game.

I'm posting this as I think this is an easy mistake for beginners to make and I hope it is helpful for others.

Not so bad -- both are important.

Both are indeed important but I think my reading is what's lacking at the moment more than my pattern recognition for life and death.

I'll get pattern recognition anyway from reading practice I think.

My basic plan is easy tsumego that I can read out very quickly, say Beginner level on wBaduk for pattern recognition and harder tsumego, say Pre-Intermediate on wBaduk for reading practice. I think this is sensible anyway.

I'm glad you're trying it the other way. Tell us if your reading improves.

When I first encountered tsumego I thought the point was to stare at impossibly hard problems until your brain hurt, and then look at the answer and be startled by the clever solution. (Sort of like the Saturday crossword.) Later I encountered the suggestion that I should read out every problem completely within a few minutes; that I should only look at the solution once I was confident I hadn't missed any variations; and, if I was struggling with this, that I should find easier problems. I immediately enjoyed doing the problems more and saw the fruits of strengthened reading in my games.

Not that there's anything wrong with looking at problems for amusement. And there are players who are staunch champions of the solution diagram. But I think it's hard to know what solving a tsumego really feels like until you've tried being thorough!

That's interesting. What I did today was read out a problem until I was confident that I had the answer read out and then tried to solve it (I was using EasyGo on the iPad for problems). If the iPad gave a response that I hadn't considered I considered the problem as failed. I try and pick problems at a level where I can work out the answer rather than ones where I have to look at the solution. I also attempted to read as far as I could mentally during my turn based games this morning and only then use an analysis board to confirm my reading. I found this enjoyable even if it did slow down things quite a bit in some of the more complex fights.

I'll give it a few weeks and report back if my reading is improving. I imagine it will as I'm starting from such a low base. All of this of course is to prepare me for reading out more complex tesuji problems. I'm beginning to encounter problems that I can solve that have maybe 12 steps and this, even though they are simple problems, is stretching my ability to read very far.

For a bit of fun, I don't take this test seriously since it can't factor in reading etc which is essential, I took this test again: http://play.baduk.org/go-test/start.php?

When I took it a few days after starting to play go it told me I was 16k EGF. Now it tells me I'm 12k EGF. It's going in the right direction at least even if it overestimating my strength by at least 6 stones.

So a study plan for the medium term:

I can't get much time aside for real time games. Basically the only time I get is when my wife is looking after the kids and not me, which doesn't happen that often since usually it's either both of us or just me doing it. I'm usually awake before everyone else but my daughter is sleeping really badly at the moment so my early morning hours to myself are frequently interrupted. So I need to come up with a different approach to loads of real time games unfortunately.

So:

Tsumego:

A lot of Life and Death, some fuseki and tesuji problems. I can fit in quite a lot of tsumego into my day. I'm often free for 10-15 minutes here and there, or times of unknown length which lends itself to tsumego practice. Ideally an hour a day, preferably 2 hours when I can squeeze that much time in, if I only get two 15 minute sessions done on a bad day I won't beat myself up about it. This will be balanced by the other things that go on. So if I'm doing 2 hours of tsumego I'm doing less of everything else most likely.

Currently I'm doing a mix of problems of different difficulties. The Fuseki problems are from 501 Opening problems and are more about me being exposed to ideas and moves than me solving them correctly. The Tesuji problems are from EasyGo and I'll most likely buy Get Strong at Tesuji for extra practice. The Life and Death are coming from wBaduk, EasyGo, Tsumego Master (Nihon Kiin) and 1001 Life and Death Problems. I'm considering picking up Graded Go Problems for Beginner's 3 as well. I like having a broad mix of styles of problems rather than working through just one book. It also helps me rotate problems a lot and avoid memorisation issues (see how my opinions have changed on this point!).

Real time games:

This depends on my sleep and general health. If I can get my sleep sorted, I'll have a 2 hour window in which to play games while my daughter is in preschool and my son in aftercare after school. If my sleep is very bad, like it's been for the past month, then most likely I'll get few real time games in. Which is less than ideal but I hope the problem solving and the turn based games compensate for this.

Turn based games:

I still need as much exposure to go as is possible. Turn based while not ideal, gives me exposure. It also gives me reading practice as I've the time to "over read" situations looking as deeply and broadly as I can into them. I've a lot of games going at the moment, I spend about an hour to two hours on taking turns in them a day. Split up into loads of little chunks here and there.

Some reading:

I want to read Tesuji by Davies and get some other books from that series and work through them. I also want to work through some "mistake" books as these might be enlightening.

Study invasion and attacking:

I want to read Attack and Defence as well as watch some lectures on Guo Juan's site on this topic. I also plan to get some problem books on these topics. I feel this is the weakest part of my game at the moment so I want to focus on it both directly through life and death practice and problem books and indirectly by watching lectures and reading books on theory and getting ideas from them (I enjoy lectures). I expect the theory to go over my head but it can't hurt to be exposed to it I think.

Study Shape:

There's a book called Making Good Shape. I want to buy it and work on it a bit. Slow back burner project, I expect it to be above my head for quite a while but no harm in looking. I've similar thoughts about Attack and Defence.


I've not bought anything in ages, so I'm going to splurge a bit on books. I enjoy collecting books anyway so it's all good.


So, in short, the main focus is to improve my reading/calculation through tsumego training and playing games. Reading theory etc is a lower priority and will be fitted in as and when I feel like it. I'm nothing if not methodical in my approach to life and go is no exception to this. I'm really enjoying being able to apply myself to something after several years in the doldrums. Details about this hidden so that people who aren't interested in personal details don't have to scroll past them:



TL;DR: I'm going to try and put in a good few hours a day into go as my lifestyle permits this and it's probably a good idea for my long term mental health.

Actually I want to break down my tsumego practice a bit more because it'll be easier for me to achieve if I have specific goals set rather than an amorphous 1-2 hours a day:

Essential block: (target do every day without fail)

15 minutes of One Move to Live problems from 1001 L&D or Beginner problems from wBaduk or Beginner Problems from Tsumego Master
15 minutes of One Move to Kill problems from 1001 L&D or Easy Life and Death Problems from EasyGo or Beginner Problems from Tsumego Master

Preferred addition: (try to do every day if possible)

15 minutes of Three Moves to Kill problems from 1001 L&D or Pre-Intermediate (Easy) problems from wBaduk or Medium Life and Death problems from EasyGo
15 minutes of Tesuji problems from EasyGo (easier ones), tesuji problems from Goproblems.com or Get Strong at Tesuji (when I get it).
15 minutes of Basics Problems from EasyGo.
15 minutes of Three Moves to Live from 1001 L&D or 15-12k problems in SmartGo Kifu/Goproblems.com

For when I'm feeling good and want to push myself: (try to do but not worry if not done)

15 minutes of 501 Opening Problems or fuseki problems from goproblems.com 20k-12k level.
15 minutes of Graded Go Problems for Beginners 3 or Pre-Intermediate (Easy) from wBaduk or Medium Life and Death from EasyGo.


I think there's a good enough mix there to keep me from getting bored with any one set of problems or style of problem.


Reading: (Optional compared to the essential tsumego section above)

15 minutes of Tesuji by Davies
15 minutes of Opening Theory made Easy (reread because I really do need to reread it)


So, on a good day 2.5 hours of study, on an off day, a half hour of study. I think this is doable and achieveable and allows for dips in mood/concentration/kids getting sick/whatever. Broken into 15 minute blocks because I find this easy enough to concentrate for and motivate myself to do. Obviously I'll have to update this list as I get new problem sets and/or finish a problem set multiple times and need to retire it for a while lest I start memorising it. I feel a lot more motivated now that I've set out specific targets.

So many books ordered! Soon the work will begin of turning Get Strong at Tesuji and Graded Go Problems 3 into sgf form!

Not hugely useful to review I suppose since it's a win by resignation but since I'm working on fighting technique I'd love to have the major fight in this game analysed. I'm sure I made many mistakes as this is pretty much the first time I've attacked like this I think.



Next game I post up will be a crushing loss, I promise. I've a few in the works as they say!

In other news, tsumego practice is going very well. My new approach is proving very interesting and enjoyable and I'm finding myself more inclined to read deeper while playing which can only be a good thing I think.

Basic shapes.

Thanks Ed.