I see, so to practice my reading I should just read?

Should I simply solve tsumego or is it a good practice to just put some stones on the board and try to read some sequence?

Also I do have a problem when reading out long sequences where I forget where stones are. When I visualize stones after few seconds as I am reading the stones fade away and while I know some stones must be at that specific area I can't really tell where exactly with a sharp answer.

How do you guys deal with reading? Nobody every told me how to read, as it is something you must figure out yourself. But it is damn hard to read moves ahead if they don't seem natural or simple.

If there is a complex tesuji, or L&D problem I simply forget where some stones are placed and then I have to go back and it takes so much time just to remember where I marked the stones. Then the problem is if I am not completely sure where they are I can't see a snapback, ko, atari, etc.

It seems that you can give a good guideline for anything related to go study, but when asked on how to practice reading the answer is always, to read.

That is like asking how to swim and someone just tells you that you need to swim in order to learn how to swim. No guidelines on how to move your legs and arms, what to do with your head.

Do you have a problem with visulization? Go grab a simple problem, maybe lay it out on the board and focus on it. If you walk away from the board, or close your eyes, can you see the position clearly in your mind? Maybe look at a blank board and try to visualize the problem on there? Can you see it?

If you cant, maybe you need to work on practice visualizing things. Do more practice visualizing (just holding the images in your mind and imagine adding stones to the positions until you can see those clearly in your mind too). It might be hard at first, but with practice you will improve!

One way to work on this is to just lay out the start of a ladder on the board, and throw some stones around the other side. The ladder is non-branching, so just visualize it stone by stone until you see how it interacts with the ones it hits. If you lose track of it, move the ladder a few spaces closer and try it again. Once you can hold it all in your head, move it back a space, or change the arrangement of the stones it hits and read it to see what happens again.

Tsumego are also a decent way to work on this, provided you test out all the variants in your head before looking at the answer.

In important games, I've definitely had times when I felt I couldn't read a sequence because it was just a couple moves too long, and I was also able to will myself to read it out fully by convincing myself that it was possible for me to do.

I'm guessing this is obvious, but online I find that both physically "playing" out the moves with my mouse (or finger) helps - as does letting my pointer hover over the next move. For in person games I've found that it is a little frowned upon (that said even gesturing slightly at the board helps me visualize the sequence - though it's a clear tell).

Edit:
I also suspect - though I have yet to have it confirmed that deeper reading comes with a deeper understanding of shape. Watching YouTube dans their mouse always seems drawn to the key shape points - especially in the long sequences. Also when playing against the stronger players in my club I've noticed that a) they pause the most when I play a move that is "off" a shape point - which seems to suggest that they didn't consider it very deeply (or they are just taking a moment to morn having to play someone this bad).

The introduction to Davies' "Tesuji" has a guide to reading that I found really helpful. It's a book I would recommend to anyone, anyway. Also, as to visualization practice, I would advise going slowly. I often find I can read five or six moves comfortably, but when I get to ten, I lose track of the first six. Lately, when doing tsumego, I've been trying to read three or four, then stop, and try to really see those first few, almost as if that was the beginning of the problem, and then move on. I'm hoping this way I can increase the number of moves I can easily visualize. Have any stronger players done this?

This is maybe coming from a music book I really like, called "Effortless Mastery". One of its points is that you might think youve got something if you can do it 80% of the time, but in order for it to be something you can build on, you really need to be able to do it effortlessly, almost 100% of the time.

these are all really great suggestions for learning to read.
thanks Krama for bringing up this topic, as I have the same problem, and may be my current barrier to improving.

Long time no see.
I'm almost through the wall. And it is thanks to Haylee. (But I'm wondering if everyone watches her videos then everyone improves simultaneously thus all ranks will stay the same.)

Anyway, reading another topic urged me to post this game:
The title could be "My epic struggle against the sandbagger".
Although the guy might have been just trying to get a rank.

As a general takeaway I feel that white's play in the game encouraged black to strengthen his own positions and didn't take advantage of black's dubious tenukis early on in the game. A more in depth commentary is above.

skydyr: thank you for your review! The opponent later turned out to be 2-3k strong (according to KGS archives) although by the middle of the game I was pretty sure he was stronger than 9k)

Aaaand, I think my wall is finally down! All hail Halylee for her magic videos! I certainly attribute my +0.5 stone strength to watching her videos.

Here is a (now) 5k game of mine I'd like someone to please comment as I'm sure I made many mistakes and I had a distinct uncertainty as to how to profit from chasing that black group without giving up my own dragon.

Here is the game, I was white. It was quite close until I smelled aji and had a "let's try this" moment that resulted in game deciding profit.

- this is one of the very few josekis I know and I thought it would end up ok for white. Black tenukied before the end of the joseki which I think was a mistake.
- seems to me like the typical lonely and too deep stone so I thought I should apply some pressure. Which ended up as a chase which then spun out of control.
- is where I went "what now?". Then I decided to run for the C-10 stone but I wasn't sure if it was a good idea.
- I'm not sure if the tenuki is ok, but I didn't want to play F-16 after the kick.
- This was a profane and easy to see through plan but it worked: play the ladder breaker than do the ladder.
- I saw that I'll be able to protect the cut with a net. (Later it went non-functional and I didn't notice )
- in reality I aimed at the corner.
- I know that should be a mistake here but I was not brave enough to try and punish.
- maybe should have been at O-4?
- :b127: spoiled my net and I didn't notice...

Some thoughts, keep in mind I'm not really any better at this game than you are.

I couldn't help but swear and gesticulate wildly when black let such a large capture happen, with that mistake at 161.

It was silly. Should've played 161 at C7

seems like it could have gone a little closer, maybe R9.
seems plainly wrong to me. Doesn't threaten to slide into the corner, and all it can do there is run.
seems wronger. It forces white to reinforce, and doesn't look like it gains something nice.
at M12 maybe? Pushing from the top seems too slack anyway, and it doesn't really enclose territory on the fifth line.
at K14 to keep it split off. The central line of white stones isn't really fenced in anyway.
at C14 to work with the central line, which happened next move anyway...
F16 seems mandatory, here
E16 seems to lead to more interesting places for black.
cut at E4 seems promising
definitely agree on O4 being better.

you are right that you don't want to play F16 after the kick.

A cool move for is B15 protects the cut in sente.


it seems like this is the wrong move because you play If you want to protect yourself from being undercut I think N18 is better. It threatens to come in under black and also doesn't induce black to stand up at M16 causing you to play N16 (empty triangle)

there's some tricky joseki involved after black hanes and it only works because you have the C6 stone. idk if it works in this exact situation. But I think it's important to know the difference between having the C6 stone and jumping directly into the 3-3.

http://eidogo.com/#kjd:pdqfqhqcqdpcoc

I think your aim here was J5 right? why not just play J5 directly. Black is still forced to save H5 from atari. And then you still have the move F8 available to you


Good thought. Your move at is what I would do.

I think this is the wrong side. This move is too far from the black stones. The other white group is weaker so it's probably better to make them stronger first. Did you consider M12? This move is called a cap and is a very strong weapon when attacking.



Other notes and I think might be a pattern in your games. Normally you want to keep your opponents stones separated. That's how you create weak groups and attack. In the case of maybe there's no time for you to split, but in the case of you definitely could have fought.

Just some things you can think about.

I do like your ladder breaker at J13. Super cool. :]

In the showdown, Black makes a fatal mistake at 161.
You could have avoided his improved answer by playing the shapewise better move at 156, to which Black has an interesting tesuji. Eventually I believe you can at best capture 3 stones.

Good game!

Knotwilg, actually in your variations white doesn't get anything: after peep of 156 for 161 black simply ataris at e7 to capture white and save everything. Better is to peep for 154, as then if black connects you take a liberty with e7 which threatens h5 (so f6 is aji keshi) and if black defends against that then a8 works (so black has to let white capture the 3 stones, in sente with the snapback shape.

Correct. I was blind for the atari at E7