There's a lot of discussion about getting stronger, one needs to learn the fundamentals. Dan players have a good understanding of the fundamentals. But not much discussion on what are the fundamentals. I know Kageyama touches various topics in his book, but I'd like to further the discussion here.

What are the fundamentals? What scope do they cover? Which topics are considered fundamental and which aren't?

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Go Books

Stuff that you don't play perfectly, yet, I guess.

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be immersed

So, everything?

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Go Books

To be honest, I'm starting to think that 'fundamentals' is a bit of a red herring. I think that to some degree, strong players are limited in their ability to explain them because the fundamentals are the normal move that follows their unconscious pruning process. In addition a lot of people conflate basic with fundamental, while fundamentals are nuanced and not necessarily simple.

In essence, the fundamentals are those things that a strong player takes for granted as 'of course you play this way'. You can give lots of examples, like extending from atari, hane or extend after contact, and so forth, but there are also lots of counterexamples. Empty triangles are bad, except when they're good.

I think that they are really a set of principles underlying moves than moves themselves. Not backing down from your opponent, making sure exchanges end up even at least, playing efficient moves, not playing extraneous moves, coordinating your stones, timing particular moves, counting liberties, attacking for profit, not giving their opponent an easy game, reading moves out before you play, and so forth. Things that are relatively easy to say (who aims to play inefficiently, or to lose in exchanges?) but not always so easy to put into practice, where the correct answer can require deep reading and/or good positional judgement to apply.

These aren't things that you can just learn and be done with, but concepts that require continuous refinement and rejection of the current assumed knowledge in the pursuit of something more refined and nuanced as one gets better. They are also things that are easy to ignore in favour of shortcuts or because you don't feel like bothering one day.

Only things I consider to be fundamental is understanding shapes. Not just "good" and "bad" shapes, but efficient shapes. What are efficient shapes, why are they efficient, and efficient towards what exactly? Being able to answer those questions and integrate them into your games.

I agree that fundamental and basic, while synonyms, are not the same. Fundamental is more general. But I disagree about the ability of strong players to explain something that is fundamental. If they can't do it, it ain't fundamental.

I make an analogy with grades in school. When I advise someone to study the basics, I mean things that, by analogy, they would learn in grammar school.

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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.

After reading "Lessons in the fundamentals", I took an antagonistic view to the praise it got. I found that Kageyama repeatedly urged us to follow the fundamentals, without really explaining what they were. What Kageyama listed were basic principles and heuristics but they were not convincingly deduced from a set of fundamentals. (the discussion can be found at Sensei's Library)

For a long time I thought the fundamentals were a bit of a red herring too, until Kang Min U (aka Minue), a Korean 6d with a convincing track record on KGS started using Sensei's Library to mark up the foundations of his teachings to online students. His writings survive as http://senseis.xmp.net/?HaengmaTutorialForBeginners. As far as I'm concerned, they are the true "Lessons in the fundamentals of Go" and I recommend its reading whenever someone asks about them.

His work remains unfinished as he prematurely left the go scene, but there is enough to saviour.

Other than that I believe Robert Jasiek has made major attempts to be more rigorous about go theory than what has reached us through translations of eastern go literature but I've never got round to reading any of his books front to cover.

Lessons in the Fundamentals is a translation of Ama to Puro, which has a straightforward translation as Amateurs and Pros. While Kageyama may talk about fundamentals, I suspect that he means things more on the level of high school than grammar school. After all, the difference between amateurs and pros is not at an elementary level. But I do think that the pros have the fundamentals at their fingertips, while most amateurs have gaping holes in their skills and knowledge.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Having gone through the book recently, I'd agree. I found the "easy" life and death problems difficult.

I'm not sure I understand that reference.

High School, to me, is an American phenomenon which refers to ages 15-18 (approx.) regardless of level.

Grammar school, again to me, is a British phenomenon. I went to grammar school from age 11-18 and it was what was required for all university prospects (plus others who did not go to university). Lesser schoolkids (who never had a chance of university) failed to get into grammar school. Of course, the British system changed a long, long time ago and grammar schools no longer exist in the state education system, but that is still the standard I think of.

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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).

How about elementary school?

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

FYI Grammar schools do still exist: e.g. a friend of mine went to Aylesbury Grammar School. There are 164 state grammar schools in England. What I believe is true is that there have been no new state grammar schools since the move to comprehensive education in the 60s, though the new Prime Minster, Theresa May, is a fan of them so change is on the cards.

Ah, thanks for that information. I did not realize they still existed. I was in the last year one to enter the grammar school I attended, in 1963. The year after was the start of the comprehensive system.

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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).

Possibly misremembering slightly? When I was at grammar school it was always for boys and the girls' equivalent was a high school (the full title was usually XXX High School for Girls - a bit tautological, though I do have a vague memory that outside England high school was used for boys in Scotland, and possibly Ulster). One of my daughters went to such a high school, and it still exists. Indeed, it and similar institutions seem to be thriving because their exclusion of boys makes them highly desirable for muslim families.

To this day I can't ever understand what Americans are talking about when it comes to schools, especially grade schools, all compounded by the fact they use school for university. Of course we now use university for polytechnics, and I recently had an argument with my daughter about the difference between a nursery and a kindergarten (not to mention "child-minding services"), so educational terminology is obviously an area to tread with caution.

It seems to vary around the country: in Buckinghamshire Aylesbury Grammar is boys-only, and has links (orchestra, drama etc) with girls-only Aylesbury High School (though a long time ago Aylsebury Grammar was co-ed and independent). But my mother went to girls-only Clarendon House Grammar School in Kent, which was twinned with boys-only Chatham House Grammar School.

Not in Bradford in the early '60s. I went to Belle Vue Boys Grammar School and there was a Belle Vue Girls Grammar School right next to it. Likewise for all the other school in the town, although for some strange reason the boys and girls school had different names for each of the others. I have never heard the term High School used in Britain but, admittedly, I did leave in 1977.

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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).

@Sparky314

Please change the title of the thread to: "What are the fundamental naming conventions used in British and American education systems."

Thanks.

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Patience, grasshopper.

The [go] fundamentals are
- the rules,
- the basic concepts (such as connection, life + death) on which all higher concepts rely (excluding advanced aspects that are of basic concepts and often immaterial for higher concepts) and
- the basics of every higher concept on which all higher aspects of such a concept rely.

While this definition is straightforward, identifying a concept as basic or aspects of higher concepts as basic requires profound knowledge so that basics are not overlooked and advanced things are not mistakenly perceived as basic things. A comprehensive study of knowledge can make the distinction meaningfully.

Apologies for the derailing daal, though I think this talk of grammar schools is about as useful as the never-ending circular discussion of fundamentals threads that people seem to like here which never use a go diagram.

I am sure that you do a good job explaining things in your books, but this definition is not straightforward at all, it is not even a definition, it just replaces the word fundamental with the word basics.