Life In 19x19

Hi there!

I didn´t find a similar question in the Forum, so I´ll ask it here:
I ´m interested to know how your (Dan player) Tsumego routine (if any) looks like

-now and in comparison to yout way up from a Beginner
-what´s your opinion how much it helped your progress
-what kind of problems do you do now (hard/easy/only Life&Death??)

I myself like to solve them and was very surprised by a 2 Dan KGS who told me that he rarely does or did them...
Curious to know if that`s the case for many players.

Until I reached 3 or 4 dan I probably did more time study time with tsumego and L&D than any other part of the game. I would say that it was essential to my improvement. Since that time I have not studied it much at all, but I do enjoy occasionally going into SL and looking at some of the tougher ones

I did maybe 400 - 500 tsumego from 4 kyu to 5 dan. Now I mostly play around with tough tsumego for esthetic appreciation. To show how bad I was as a 4 kyu, I once made a three stone group inside my single eye atari, instead of doing nothing and getting a seki. Still, when I started on Maeda's first volume, the 8-10 kyu problems were easy. So I wasn't terrible at tsumego.

As for how much difference tsumego made in my progress, I would like to say 4 stones, but it was probably less than that. Bear in mind that you pick up a lot that applies to life and death from studying other things, such as the endgame, invasions, joseki, tesuji, and pro games. IMO, the most important study is your own games.

So, doing a few thousand tsumego repeatedly is a little overzealous?

tentano wrote:So, doing a few thousand tsumego repeatedly is a little overzealous?

There is a lot to be said for doing easy ones (for your level, whatever that is) over and over until they are hardwired into your brain and don't need any thought when they come up in a game. Once you have mastered those for your level do the same for the next level. As a mid-dan I used to go over Davis' L&D and Tesuji every year, just to maintain the hardwiring.

tentano wrote:So, doing a few thousand tsumego repeatedly is a little overzealous?

Whatever rocks your boat.
This is a hobby, I assume, so if you have fun doing something, do it. Who cares if it too much or too little if you're having fun.

As for me, I can't say I have ever done any tsumego at all, and somehow I bumbled all the way to 5d or so. Others did thousands of them and are still weaker Some others also did thousands, and can beat me in like 3 moves. But I had fun, still do, and will fight anybody who tries to tell me I have to do tsumego when its not fun. If I liked it, I'd fight anybody who tells me to do less.

Its all good.

I just find it so striking how widely divergent tsumego practice is, from not at all to intensely.

It makes it look like it's just a recreational preference, rather than anything you'd actually need.

This doesn't actually stop me, though. It just amazes me.

tentano wrote:So, doing a few thousand tsumego repeatedly is a little overzealous?

One thing that I do with problems of all kinds is overlearning. As I learned it, the idea is to have somewhat more successes than half the failures. For instance, if I solve the problem the first time, I don't try it again. If I solve it the second time, I try again and if I succeed I don't try it any more. At that point I have one failure and two successes. If I don't get a problem right until the third time I try it, I continue for two more successes. That gives me two failures and three successes. If I don't get a problem right until the fourth time, I go for three failures and three successes. If it takes five times to get it right, I go for four and four. Then six and four. Etc. (But, truth to say, if I don't get a problem right in five tries, it is probably too hard for me at the moment. )

Oh, one reason that I did not do so many tsumego problems is that, once I had tried the problems I had at my level, I waited months to try them again, so that I could not simply rely upon memory and recall the solutions instead of working them out. These days it is easy to find a large number of problems at any level, so I would not have to do that.

BTW, drill is not the only way to develop the ability to see the answers to problems, or anything else on the go board. Understanding works, too.

tentano wrote:I just find it so striking how widely divergent tsumego practice is, from not at all to intensely.

It makes it look like it's just a recreational preference, rather than anything you'd actually need.

This doesn't actually stop me, though. It just amazes me.

To advance, you normally need to set yourself challenges at the right level. For some people, simply playing does that. But most of us need study, practice, and drill.

Thx for the answers, very interesting so far.

tentano wrote:I just find it so striking how widely divergent tsumego practice is, from not at all to intensely.

It makes it look like it's just a recreational preference, rather than anything you'd actually need.

This doesn't actually stop me, though. It just amazes me.

^ exactly this. I was curious because there are many pages where it is described as THE most important tool for improving. Maybe this is the case for the majority, but it seems like a not-so small number can climb up the ladder with a totally different approach.

Bill Spight wrote: IMO, the most important study is your own games.

Just started that, and learned a lot from it. But it seems that part is overlooked by many players.

tentano wrote:I just find it so striking how widely divergent tsumego practice is, from not at all to intensely.

I think it's a jump to describe tsumego practice as widely divergent. On the one hand, you've got a massive (overwhelming) amount of strong players saying tsumego is the key to go strength, and on the other hand, you've got Bantari. Sounds a bit like the global warming thing: >99% of scientists say that we are warming the earth, less than 1% say we are not. You cannot conclude from that there is widely divergent opinion on warming.

The fact that Bantari developed his reading skills without tsumego is fascinating (I'd certainly like to hear more), but it's probable that he is some kind of savant rather than an inspiration to us all.

I've never been a big lover of tsume-go, and have never systematically done them. I would probably be a stronger player if I had had the patience and dedication to study tsume-go seriously back when I was learning.

Well, Bantari isn't the first I've heard of who didn't do much or any tsumego before reaching somewhere in the dans.

I'm still fully convinced it's what I need to improve, but apparently this isn't a self-evident truth which can be generalized to everyone.

tentano wrote:Well, Bantari isn't the first I've heard of who didn't do much or any tsumego before reaching somewhere in the dans.

I'm still fully convinced it's what I need to improve, but apparently this isn't a self-evident truth which can be generalized to everyone.

Go is a mountain with many paths to reach the top. Some prefer the most traveled path, others a lesser one, and still others to blaze their own trail. Some of the paths are quite direct, some are more circuitous, some are steep and some are gentle, but all of them can lead higher.

tentano wrote:Well, Bantari isn't the first I've heard of who didn't do much or any tsumego before reaching somewhere in the dans.

I'm still fully convinced it's what I need to improve, but apparently this isn't a self-evident truth which can be generalized to everyone.

Tsumego is a good way to improve.
It trains concentration, mental stamina, visualization skills, and a lot more. All of that very important in Go.

In my case, I got most of that through other means, so the only thing I would have really gotten from tsumego would be shapes. But my position always was that tsumego shapes fall into two categories: (a) those rather common, with minor variances, which I could learn more pleasurably from simply playing more games, and (b) those quite weird, which I did not think I really needed to learn.

When I had time for Go, I preferred to play than to do tsumego.
When I had time for Go AND felt like studying, I had more fun going over pro games and learning about ideas rather than doing the nitty-gritty of tsumego (which I did not feel taught me anything really.)

Still, everybody is different, so if you feel tsumego can help you and you don't mind grinding (or even like doing it) - just go for it. Its all for fun, after all.