Kageyama mentions this, too, IIRC.

_________________
be immersed

Humans are quite bad at breadth first search. (Not exactly what reading wide means, I think, but related.)



Kotov, in "Think Like a Grandmaster" advises against re-reading. You have to trust your reading.

While that advice does not seem to hold up, it is good training, IMO. Dithering does no good.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

This might be good advice, but what if you make a mistake?

_________________
be immersed

FWIW, here is how I see theses ladders.

And thanks to Dave, for pointing out the net.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Ladder visualization
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . X . X X O O . . . |
$$ | . . O O X . . . . O X X . X O . O O . |
$$ | . . O X . X . O . O O X X O O O X X . |
$$ | . . O X . . . . . O X O O X X X X . . |
$$ | . O X . . . . . . O X X O O . X O . . |
$$ | . O X . . . . . O X X X O O . X . . . |
$$ | . O X . . . . O . X . O X O . . X X . |
$$ | . . X O . . O . . . . . X X B O O . . |
$$ | . . . . X O X X O . . O O O . O X X . |
$$ | . . . X . O X O . , . O X X O , O X . |
$$ | . . X . O . X O . . . . O X . . O X . |
$$ | . . . . . O O . . . . . O X . . O . . |
$$ | . . O O O X X . . . . . O X . . . . . |
$$ | . X X X X O X . X . . . O X . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X O O . . . . . . O X O O O . . |
$$ | . . . X O . . O . X . . O O X X O . . |
$$ | . . X O . O . . . . . . X X . X X . . |
$$ | . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Ladder visualization II
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . X . X X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X . X . . X X X . . . . O O . . . . |
$$ | . X X O X X O O O X X X O O X . O . . |
$$ | . X O O . X O . . , O . O X X X . . . |
$$ | . . X O . O O . . O . . . O . . X . . |
$$ | X . X O . . . . . . . . O . B X O . . |
$$ | . O O X O . . . . . . O X . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X O . . . . . O . X O . . . . . |
$$ | . . O O O . . . . O . X O X X X X . . |
$$ | . . . X O X . . O , . O O O X O . . . |
$$ | . . X . X O O O . . . . . . O . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X O X . . . . . O . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . X O X X O . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X X . O . O . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . X O X . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . |
$$ | . O O O . . . . . , . . . . . X X O . |
$$ | . . . . . O . . X . . . X X X O O O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . O O . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Macbeth. If we should fail?

Lady Macbeth. We fail!

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Duplicate.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

If I may summarize, we can interpret this to mean that re-reading is worse than failure, right? That is, if re-reading could give us a chance to not fail when we otherwise would fail by reading only once, one ought to take their chances with the failure, since it is worse to re-read.

Is this an accurate representation of the advice?

_________________
be immersed

I think he's saying it's good training for your reading and confidence. In a tournament game, if you're not positive, reread, but otherwise it's better to try reading other things. For example, if I read that a ladder doesn't work, it's more productive to look for nets than to keep reading the ladder over and over. I've fallen into that trap a lot, even to the point of quadruple-checking even simple snapbacky sorts of issues. Because I'm spending all of my time reading absurdities, those games look afterwards like I wasn't even reading at all. With practice, it seems like you'd be able to read more confidently, and only check things that are actually issues.

Similarly, another related issue I've had is that I don't trust my reading, so I play a slightly more passive response to moves. That's a habit I've really been trying to break, so I trust my reading, even if it's only for a half-point ko. I've lost games for that specific reason, but I think it's better to play based on reading than based on fear. That said, in a big tournament game, if I knew I was ahead, I would pass on the half-point ko if there was some risk involved, imagined or otherwise.

_________________
Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

If I see what looks like a tesuji, but read it out and realise it doesn't work, I read it out another 25 times in the hope I can make it work through sheer willpower.

I just play it anyway. Hey, its a tesuji, right?

When I do this, sometimes I manage to convince myself it does. Generally it still doesn't, though...

_________________
Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

I don't want to be too profligate with my "likes", but I really want to "like" all 3 of those last posts. I can relate to all of them

Presumably there's a difference, though, between re-reading for the sake of re-reading and re-reading to consider a variation that you dismissed the first time.

I have not read Kageyama, but ladders (and other similar positions) are near and dear to my heart.

I see ladders similarly to the way Bill does (though I make mistakes more often, I guarantee; stones are hard to visualize ... more on this later).

It's interesting how many people use the "tic-tac" method beyond 4-5 moves ... I can't keep "tic-tac" up past the first 6 moves or so ... I lose my train of thought, and sometimes miss.

To elaborate a bit on my ladder reading style ...

1) Diagonal lines

The simplest ladders are diagonal lines. I don't visualize stones very well, but I can see a straight diagonal line. Don't know why there's a difference, and I'm slowly getting better at using stones instead of lines.

2) Partial shift

There are certain shapes that indicate to me that it's possible to "shift" part of a diagonal line in the up-down or left-right directions. These are the next step of complication in ladders, in my opinion.

3) Reflect direction

After getting good at the partial shift, the next thing that I started to see were shifts that allowed a right-angle turn for the diagonal line. This seems to me to be the next step of complications in ladders.

From here, my ladder reading gets better by recognizing and visuallizing opportunities for throw-ins and eye-stealing tesuji as triggers for ladder situations.

My reading is imperfect, but I feel comfortable reading sown a narrow line of play fairly deeply. Breadth of reading is slowly getting better.

Now, if only my global strategy were to get better ... I suck at reading the state of the overall board.

We need a thread "Get Strong At Shichos", with ladders sorted by order of difficulty

Yeah, in the past, I have run out of examples, or I found that the ladder exercises on senseis were wildly variable in difficulty. I think you could get pretty far just by reorganizing the stones in the examples that Kageyama gives.

_________________
Occupy Babel!

To summarize, IMO you need more grit.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Does anyone else find that they can read ladders across the board, but by the time they get to the other side, they've lost track of which color is being chased? I find this happens to me quite a bit, forcing me to reread when the situation is complicated on the other side. It's not a major problem, but I find the fact that this happens kind of interesting.

_________________
We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

this happens to me too. I have to than start again, thinking of the color chased while doing tic tac and only adding chasing stones ("black-white-black-..") near other stones ..

two ladder problems I found some time ago:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c can you capture the cutting stones?
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . O . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , X . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . X O X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O O X . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . X X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c can you capture the two stones?
$$ -----------------
$$ | . X . O O . . |
$$ | . X O . . O . |
$$ | . . . . . . O |
$$ | . . . , . . . |
$$ | O . . . . . . |
$$ | . X Q . . . . |
$$ | . X Q X X . . |
$$ ----------------[/go]