Looking at tesuji problems these days have me looking for a way to use them in my games. In reality, how much should I be thinking about them in my games? All the time? Once every 20 moves? Don't even worry about it at my level?

Are tesuji problems useful to a kyu player or is this one of those things reserved for higher level players? It's confusing since it is talked about so often in commentaries and lessons.

They're absolutely relevant at your level. Most moves don't qualify as a tesuji, but a lot of basic combinations that you may already play have tesuji lurking in the background. It's a common situation for a joseki move to be right because playing a different way is refuted by a particular tesuji.

You don't, or at least I don't, typically think of them as tesuji in games. You just read and try to find the move that works.

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Occupy Babel!

Thanks, it's good to know I haven't been wasting my time. I've been "on-the-go" all the time these days, go all I really do is solve tsumego/tesuji problems. Hopefully they do something for my game.

Tesuji are not something you normal go out of your way to play. Tesuji problems train you to look at the vital points of shapes. Sometimes one point is key, sometimes it is another. What you are doing by practicing tesuji problems is learning to recognize key points when they occur in your games.

So don't go looking for tesuji. Go looking for key points. Those will often correspond to a tesuji problem you have previously countered. But key points may be strategic as well a tactical and it is only the latter which are usually called tesuji.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

I guess I'll have to make your word for it on this one. All the strong players keep telling me that I would be able to recognize key points and shapes in the future, but it boggles my mind how that is possible given all the situations and scenarios. Even similar situations sometimes seem to have a different key point or solution because of one intricate detail.

You can divide the process of playing the right move into three concurrent problems: selecting candidate moves, verifying whether those moves work, and evaluating who is favored by the final position. (This is roughly how the latest strong computer programs tackle the problem, though humans have approached go this way for much longer.)

Tesuji problems are primarily helpful in the first two phases. By seeing lots of common shapes, you're more likely to be able to select decent candidate moves. Identifying a key point doesn't mean it will be the right move to play every time; you still have to verify it works in your particular game. However, in the process of solving problems you're likely to do lots of reading, which will strengthen your ability to evaluate whether that move works in a particular situation.

Deciding whether the resulting position is actually good for you is a different skill set that is (generally) trained in different ways.

It is not as bad as it seems. Think about the analogy with learning a language. young kids learn their letters but don't know their words. After a little while they learn their words but still have trouble reading complete sentences fluently. At some point in their development they learn how to pronounce though, bough, thorough, thought, etc.

Development of your instincts for tesuji works along the same lines. All it takes is practice.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

I never thought of it like that... is there a book that would teach me the "alphabet"? Although, it seems more like Chinese characters to me.

Sure.



Part of learning tesuji is learning how and when to use them. OC, it is natural to look for opportunities to use them in your games. No harm there. OTOH, overthinking is not good. When you play, relax and see what you can see. If you find a tesuji, great! If, when you review, you discover that you overlooked one, that's good, too. At this point in your go career you are improving rapidly. What amazed you a few months ago will soon be old hat to you.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Afraid I am not very familiar with the English go literature. However, there is a lot of good stuff on Sensei's Library ( http://senseis.xmp.net ). I have assayed to say something about basic units of play there ( http://senseis.xmp.net/?BillSpight%2FBasicClosePatterns ).

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

The fundamental meaning of tesuji is 'the way to play' and it is indeed often used with that simple meaning, but in general it is nuanced and implies something notably skilful (but still standard).

One way to look at it is to view a tesuji as a key that unlocks a door. So your job is to look at a position and decide whether it is a room worth having a door and, if so, whether the contents are worth grabbing. Only then do you check if you have the right key. If the space you want to access is a castle keep with a portcullis and a moat, you can probably conclude that you need to look for a side door or a ladder, or get the sappers to hew out a tunnel. If it's a corral with a rope hitched over a fence-post you don't need a key, though you may need to take precautions to avoid a stampede.

Anything in-between will usually have a door with a key. That covers a huge variety of rooms, but the number of kinds of door will be much smaller, and those doors will have an even smaller number of kinds of lock. So if you acquire a reasonable bunch of keys and jemmy tools, you should be able to unpick locks into almost all kinds of rooms. Otherwise carry a battering ram around.

negapesuo, there was a similar post from another user a while back wondering whether all those tesuji problems were actually useful in games as situations for them didn't seem to arise. Sometimes the tesuji is buried a little deeper down a line of play and strong players' awareness of that tesuji means that line is not the one chosen. I gave an example of this idea you might find interesting: viewtopic.php?p=90950#p90950.

A good textbook-style survey of tesuji patterns is Tesuji from the Elementary Go Series. For problems I recommend Get Strong at Tesuji. It has a range of difficulties; some will be over your head for now, but many will be within your grasp, and you will be exposed to a lot of "good shape" moves. Both of these books are regarded as classics by many posters here.

You will also learn about many basic tesuji patterns in a workbook-like way in the Level Up and Jump Level Up series, along with many other types of information.

At a slightly higher level I am currently enjoying A Survey of the Basic Tesujis, which categories tesuji moves more by syntax (what is the local pattern of stones) than semantics (what is the goal of the sequence). And at a higher level still (I think) there is Fujisawa's Dictionary of Basic Tesuji.

Depends on the tesuji.

I am not looking for tesujis per se in my games, but for example if one of my stones is in atari and dead, I *do* check whether it improves the situation to pull it out once and sacrifice the two of them. If I check whether two of my groups are connected, I *do* check some keima and ogeima moves near the border that I would not have considered earlier.

As John Fairbairn said, tesuji is just good play. A tesuji move is simply a good move that accomplishes a particular goal. Learning to recognize frequently occurring patterns is just part of learning good play, how to play well. Learning how to play well is something that begins when someone begins to play go so it applies at every level. Even 9-dan pros are now learning new ways to play well from studying moves played by AphaGo and modifying their concept of good play.