I have the same problem with visualizing, and my visual memory seems quite weak. After a while (about 3-7 stones depending on the problem) the virtual stones blurr and I have to start over. That's why I often fail at problems where shortage of liberties is involved.

To overcome this I have started to anatomize tsumego into their components, i.e. the basic techniques for L&D and tesuji, such as expand/reduce eyespace, nakade shapes, throw-ins, shortage of liberties, snapbacks etc. I will start with very easy tsumego until I know every variation so well that I can create this tsumego on my own board without looking in the book. Then I will write down this tsumego in my own documentation and every now and then I will go through those which I have already finished. I know from this only verrrrrrrrrry slow progress is possible, but better slow than nothing

When I visualize the game, I don't so much use my imagination as I do simply look at where I want the stone to go. The motion of my eyes helps to establish the position. If I forget a stone, I reestablish the location by looking back at that point.

I think this is a great idea daal. Sometimes challenging yourself by making something more and more difficult breaks down a wall and makes the original activity seem easier when you go back to it. In any case, it can't hurt to try something different. I'd be interested to hear how it goes after several months.

You remind me of a time about five years ago, when I was a poor student... (that's right kids! here comes a boring story from old man David )

I had a life and death book that I used to read on the long walk home from my crap supermarket job. Because the street lights were quite far apart, I could only glance at the problems when I walked under one. I spent the rest of the time solving them in my head. I honestly can't say how much this helped as opposed to doing problems 'normally', but I think the challenge was helpful (and it seemed like a good way to use the time).

And yes, I acknowledge that I was a fair bit younger than you when I started doing that. That's something I'm genuinely grateful for.

David

_________________
David

Go Game Guru: Learn Go | How to Get Better at Go | Go Game Shop | Go Boards | Baduk TV

I've done this for a month or so, and I believe even discussed it with Daal at the time. My observation was that memorizing pro games improved my ability to memorize pro games. It did, however, not have a noticeable effect on my ability to visualize variations in tsumego or "see" stones.

I did not have instructions on how to memorize games with a specific method, so the "natural" way it occurred was that once I had "brute force"-memorized the first four moves, I recalled the following moves in form of sequences and pattern, but I didn't actually really have a clear image of the position in my mind. Differently put, I memorized a keima, and then the joseki that followed, or attached a made-up reason why the pro played a move that didn't make obvious sense to me. It went more like: "then he played here, and here, then there, and the response was over there".

I could replay the games on the board and in my mind in the correct order, but I wasn't able to put together the board position in a random order or have a clear image of it in my mind. If I missed one move when replaying it physically or mentally, it all fell apart.

I also noticed that I apparently can't "hold" more than four games at the same time. Four worked flawlessly, I could recite them at any given time. But as soon as I memorized a fifth, another whole game would get "pushed out". Actually, it impacted all the other memorized games, as if the mental bin had been emptied to make room for new stuff. (I know this isn't how it works, but that is what I experienced. :p)

It did have a positive effect on memorizing other information, though. Short memory stuff, unrelated to Go.

I think people often take #3 for granted, I see so many game reviews where (especially in the opening/early middlegame) the reviewing player shows an improved line of play, and the person getting the review says something to the effect of "I saw that, but is that really good for B?" only to get the response "B should be very happy here!" Of course it also helps that #3 is vital in properly implementing #2 (How can you know when to prune a variation when you can't give the right evaluation?).


As far as visualization goes, I too am one who isn't the best at holding a mental picture....but there is one thing that I feel really helped me that was actually something that had nothing to do with go. Back when I was in school I made part of my morning routine working the daily crossword in the paper. Now personally I much, much prefer pen to pencil, but for working a crossword this may not always be the best approach. In order to avoid filling in a word I would regret later I would always try to solve entire blocks of the crossword at a time (3-4 words down and 3-4 words intersecting across). This way once I finally filled in the section I could be fairly confident I wasn't making an error. Eventually I found I could complete most or sometimes even all of the puzzle without even filling in a letter (Note: these weren't particularly large, or particularly difficult crossword puzzles). The thing here is, instead of having to hold a mental picture of the whole puzzle (something I often find difficult), I only had to retain a list of words (clue answers) then whenever I was looking at the appropriate section section of the puzzle mentally reconstruct the area. Basically it converts a memorization/visualization exercise into a derivation.

I think I now end up doing the same thing in go....Instead of remembering what the whole board will look like in a sequence I'm reading, I keep a mental description of exchanges (push-block-cut....press-extend-jump...etc) and when I'm looking at an area of the board apply those sequences in my brain. I think it also helps in the sense that often order of sequences matter, it's easy to reorder them if you are continuously mentally "plopping them down" on the board (as opposed to retaining a static picture of your current sequence).

If Mark Twain played go -- The difference between an equivalent position and a nearly equivalent position is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug (=

Just a little update.

It's been about three weeks, and still this is pretty much the only thing I've been doing as far as studying. Basically I've been going through my books and when I find a tsumego or tesuji that doesn't have too many stones and seems like it might be representative or otherwise worth remembering I practice visualizing it in various corners and orientations. Also, following Kirk's suggestion, I've been including josekis.

At first glance, this visualization as I call it might seem like memorization, and although this is still not my emphasis, indeed I am in fact memorizing. This is particularly the case with josekis, where this study form is much more like the (bad) memorizing and less like the (good) understanding the meaning of each move. However, one advantage of this is that I am learning to visualize the outcome of a joseki at it's onset. Again, for many of you this goes without saying, but for me it is almost revolutionary. Despite the difficulty of assessing the result (see dfan's #3 and Mef's comment above), it makes a huge difference to be able to see what I am trying assess.

Progress tends to be slow. I'm basically down to one or two positions a day. Although the problems are generally quite easy - even for me - I spend significantly more time with each problem than I ever did with other go problems, and I am starting to see improvement in my ability to visualize stones. This is hard to describe, but here is an example:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
$$---------
$$. . . . .
$$. O O . .
$$. O . . .
$$. O . . .[/go]

Instead of visualizing this as an (upside-down) "L," I am starting to see four white round stones when I imagine it. In other words, my reliance on abstractions is diminishing while my ability to see what is actually going on is improving. I hope.

Also there are a few side effect that I've been noticing. First, I've been playing slower games, and I find myself more willing to take the time to try to find a good move. I think that this is related to my studies, because I have gotten used to not rushing. Also, I haven't had any particularly dull or uninteresting games in a while. Again, I attribute this to spending more time looking instead of following my basic instinct (play the most obvious move possible). Lastly, losing is no longer getting under my skin. I'm not really sure what brought about this change, but I think that it might have to do with shifting to a long-term perspective in which being currently stuck at a certain rank is less of an issue.

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Patience, grasshopper.

This happens to me as well (especially in Go). I'm a very competitive person in most avenues of my life and I find it difficult to do something just for the joy of it. Go has been an exception to that though. Playing Go to me is much more like when I'm playing music. There's something about the flow of the stones and pace of the game that I find incredibly beautiful.

When an opponent gets the better of me, I find myself enjoying his moves.

This could also be just because I'm a beginner so I know I need to lose a lot and knowing that Go is not so much about winning and losing.

It's a very interesting thread.

Some research has been done on this in chess, but it's mostly subjective and based on interviewing grandmasters on what they see in the mind's eye when they are playing. What was interesting to me when I first read about it that is that most players don't report high-fidelity images. What they are seeing---if they see anything at all---is not vivid images of castle turrets and horse's manes, etc. They are not even keeping track of individual pieces in a clear way! It's much more abstract than that, but keeps track of the essential strengths and weaknesses in a position. If pressed they can do such exercises such as a knight's tour around the board, but this is not the typical skill being used. Most of the strong chess players rarely conjure an image of the board.

What is probably essential is to get the correct answer for a particular goal: "a few moves in, in this variation, am I short of liberties?" Or, "if it goes like this, can white make an eye here?", etc. If you can get to that point in any way, a lucid representation may not be required. Intuitively, it might seem like you would need such an image to answer these questions, but maybe the brain doesn't work that way and it may be less important than one might think.

When I play competitive strategy games (doesn't really matter what, can be Magic, can be Yomi, and be LOTR:Confrontation, can be just about any RTS under the sun), I usually just end up feeling a pressure of sorts. Do I need to be defensive here, or am I allowed to attack? If so, in what way? Precise visualizations don't enter it that often, unless I really need to count some tricky sequence out to see if some greedy thing works. Otherwise, it's all intuition and feeling the game flow. (Which my games are admittedly more heavy on compared to Go's determinism and perfect information)

This is just a side note, but I've been probing learning Chinese, and I've discovered a certain similarity between learning the characters and visualizing go positions.

When one writes Chinese characters, there is a specific order of strokes, and when I learn a new one, I've been trying to visualize it by drawing the strokes in my mind's eye. For relatively simple characters, such as: 人 or 四 it is no problem to "see" the completed figure. With a slightly more complicated character such as 我 or 他, I know what the character looks like - pretty much at least (I still don't know how relevant certain aspects of the lines are ), but I can't really see the whole thing. Maybe that's because I draw the lines of characters that I'm not sure about too slowly.

To me, a Chinese character is utterly abstract - though I have heard that there is sometimes some symbolism involved. But since I don't recognize any symbolism, a character is just a random collection of lines and shapes. Like I said, I can't yet judge what is relevant; is the length, angle or curve of a line important? I don't know, so I just try to copy the model as exactly as I can. In go, I do have a better idea what is relevant, but the visualization still seems quite similar because the arrangement of stones in a problem is also abstract, random and nonetheless unique and meaningful.

In any case, I think that my go-visualizing practice will prove beneficial to learning Chinese.

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Patience, grasshopper.

this might help: http://www.zein.se/patrick/chinen9p.html
(there are many other similar links with more or less examples and details)

As a teacher and also as someone that devotes many hours weekly to training, i have to say that 99% of the ideas you can get by looking alternate training methods, are not going to be fruitful.

As a previous poster wrote, i am not clear at what the difference between reading and visualization is for you. What is to read 5 moves ahead without visualizing it?

That said, solving problems without looking at them is a very standard training method in Asia. I found it difficult to do when i was 2-3d, but now when i solve problems i just glance at the position, and then close the book.
I have better performances looking at it, but id say that out of 100 problems i solve by looking at them, 90 i can solve in my head (although it always takes more time).

Back then i remember struggling with 9x9 blind go, but now i can play 19x19 for a 100 moves around (considering opponent doesnt do anything funky) quite ok. Then, performance and the ability to find good moves becomes too hard.

My hunch is that if you are reading without visualization, you are having a poor reading method. When you solve problems out of a book, problems that are not easy but take you a little while, what is your success rate? (how many do you get right/wrong when you finally see the answer to it?).

Something very demistifying about reading, is that intuition is purely the result of previously solved problems. The same way you can play a hoshi joseki today without hesitation and 50 years ago pro players spent hours to play worse sequences.
So you must cram into your head as many patterns as possible: and as solid as possible too. You most solve all your problem books 10 times.

You will notice that by the 4th time, you see the answer before you even see the problem. "i know this one, its there". Then by the 10th time you cans olve the problems with 100% accuracy,and greatest long-term effects.

Thats my 2cents.

Now support kaya.gs with your 2 cents .

_________________
Founder of Kaya.gs

That's a very handy site!

It may be my own learning style, but I think that practicing the basic strokes and the stroke order until they both seem obvious and natural will make the radicals, and then the characters, much less abstract and arbitrary, let's see how can I tie this back into go, just like learning tactics for contact fights and shape moves makes visualizing long joseki sequences easier.

I've always thought that the hardest part about doing this would be figuring out where my opponent moved - using coordinates for Go is very hard. If we were sitting in front of a go board and would tap an intersection to indicate a play there, that would probably be much easier. It would also offer you the advantage of being able to project your visualization onto a real board. Though I'm getting better at it, I still struggle a bit with seeing the exact distance between two corners when I'm not looking at a board, especially as more stones get added.

_________________
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.

The difference is that without visualizing, you might know the result, but you can't see it in your mind's eye. Imagine for example this:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
$$---------
$$. . . . .
$$. . O . .
$$. O X a .
$$. . O . .
$$. . . . .[/go]

you know what happens when white plays next, and it's also fairly easy to see the resulting shape.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
$$---------
$$. . . . .
$$. . O . .
$$. O . O .
$$. . O . .
$$. . . . .[/go]

When it gets just a bit more complicated though, you might still know what happens, but you might not be able to see it quite so clearly:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
$$---------
$$|a X O . .
$$|X X O . .
$$|X O . O .
$$|O O . . .
$$|. . . . .[/go]

I know that that when white plays at a here, there will be a space left the size of four stones, but what does it look like?



While seeing is only one aspect of knowing what happens, I suspect it's an important one, and much of the rest of your post supports this opinion.



I had no idea that this is a standard method. (maybe my idea isn't so "alternate" after all). As I said a few times above, my idea is to visualize a problem accurately. That means to look at a position, and then with closed eyes be able to reconstruct the problem accurately in any orientation. Being able to do this is clearly a prerequisite to the training method you mention above.



Basically, that's what I am doing. By spending such an inordinate amount of time with each problem I visualize, I am effectively cramming it into my head. Some people do a tsumego from a book and remember the solution a week later when they look at it again. I'm not one of those people. But the problems I've been visualizing stick with me quite a bit longer. Overlearning, as Bill Spight might say.




Thug: "This is a stickup! Your money or your life."
Thug: "Look, bud, I said 'Your money or your life.'"
Jack Benny: "I'm thinking it over!"

_________________
Patience, grasshopper.

This confirms my hunch. Reading the result of the capture without knowing the resulting shape of the capture is plain incomplete reading.
Exemplar cases when you do this incomplete approach are with ishi-no-shita problems or big eyes. if you can't see what is the consequence of the move, then you are just not able to evaluate the result.

Sure, most of the time we use abstraction: most captures are best local tactics, and it doesnt matter what the result will be.


Using ur very same problem..

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
$$---------
$$|a X O . .
$$|X X O X .
$$|X O O X .
$$|O O X X .
$$|X X X . .[/go]

_________________
Founder of Kaya.gs

This article Perception in chess: Evidence from eye movements (and yes, it is mainly chess research, but don't panic/over react ) reports research findings that indicate it is not any fundamental lack of visualization "talent" but rather a lack of subject-related knowledge that is the problem. Specifically the researchers exposed highly skilled players and less skilled players to a variety of chess positions for five seconds and then tested their ability to correctly recall the positions. They found that the skilled players were far superior at recalling real positions arising in actual games, but were not better when the positions were created by randomly scattering the pieces across the chess board.

"... Chase and Simon’s... finding that a master was only superior in the 5-s recall task when structured positions, rather than randomized positions, were presented, challenged the view that chess masters are superior in terms of their cognitive apparatus or processes (e.g. hardware aspects of perception, attention or memory). Rather, Chase and Simon... postulated that knowledge of patterns specific to the domain of chess supported effective search for good moves. Soon, similar findings were reported for experts in other domains including bridge players (Charness 1979), music students (Beal 1985), electronics technicians (Egan and Schwartz 1979), and basketball players (Allard et al. 1980)..."

In other words it is in support of kaya.gs and others advising that we must pack our brains full of Go images by any means that works, but always fundamentally putting in the necessary time. It is against those of us who want to cry off from the hard work because we are "too old" or fundamentally we are "poor at visualization" , etc. In fact we are merely shown to be too lazy once again!

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

You make an excellent point here, but recall: I am bad at reading, and yes, it is bad practice to stop reading at the point of a capture - one would never see an under the stones tesuji for example. To get to the correct solution of a problem however, one must first be able to get to the position before the correct solution. You have to walk before you can run. If I can't envision this:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
$$---------
$$|O . O . .
$$|. . O X .
$$|.O O X .
$$|O O X X .
$$|X X X . .[/go]

then I won't be able to envision this:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
$$---------
$$|O . O . .
$$|X . O X .
$$|. O O X .
$$|O O X X .
$$|X X X . .[/go]

To me, the first diagram is simply a step in the right direction.

I would like to add that I am very appreciative of the constructive criticism. Particularly the recent comments of snorri and ez4u also suggest that visualizing takes a back seat to perceiving relevant information. Nonetheless, although I did not do it in the above example (it was off the cuff, not something I had spent time visualizing) the practice of visualizing does indeed provoke me to spend a significant time thinking about the relevant information. In the cases where I visualize the solution as well as the problem (something I am doing more and more) I also spend an equal amount of time visualizing and considering the failures. Again, many of you have better study habits than me and always call into question presented solutions until you are thoroughly satisfied. I on the other hand tend to say "oh!" and move on to the next problem. With my current method however, I'm allowing myself the time to think about just the one problem.


To illustrate, a recent example from Making Good Shape (reconstructed from memory) shows the following failure:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$ Black must fight a ko to live
$$---------
$$|. . 1 . 6 . .
$$|5 X . . . O .
$$|3 2 X X X O .
$$|4 . O O O O .
$$|. O . . . . .
$$|. . O . . . .[/go]

was indeed my first idea, so instead of saying to myself "I blew that again" I spent quite a bit of time thinking about why it didn't work, why black answers with and not at , what does white do after retaking the ko. I finally see this:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$ oops
$$---------
$$|. . X 1 O . .
$$|X X . 2 a O .
$$|X O X X X O .
$$|O . O O O O .
$$|. O . . . . .
$$|. . O . . . .[/go]

Black can't play at "a" because of a shortage of liberties. Something I wasn't expecting, so I think about why I should have expected it, etc. I'm not good, but I am pretty sure that I am getting better.

BTW, if you also find it difficult to visualize the original problem with all the solution stones muddying it up, here it is

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Patience, grasshopper.

Happen to come across this post when I was finding any discussions on how people / pro / strong amateurs get good and quick reading skills.

Very much appreciate this!

I've been on some kind of experiment lately, I'm not too sure whether doing this is right or wrong so I'm also seeking some validation. As as my progress with tesuji's and L&D, I've no problems solving easy ones and reading them out, provided I've seen the same pattern.

However, when comes to reading for unfamiliar patterns, I tend to stuck in the same wrong solution for a very long time. Sometimes I get to move on, but sometimes I don't. I tried to imagine stones being put on the problem pattern, be it on a book or on screen, but I find that I quickly forget the lines that didn't work out.

Then I figured if I just continue doing L&D problems like this, I'm only learning from brute force memory and not really "read" them out. Thus I came up with a practice I did when I was practicing for Chinese Chess. I looked at the board, and I visualize the board in my head. It seems I can better grasp on what's happening with the use of "mind's eye". But I need to do it with my eyes closed. It'll be awkward if I always do this is real games.

So this gets me wondering, how do Pros / strong amateurs read the sequences? Do they really look at the board and visualize the moves? Or they are using "mind's eye" as well, despite having their eyes looking at the board but their thoughts already wandered elsewhere?

Just fyi, I can solve problems faster using this "mind's eye" visualization and frankly speaking it was very satisfying because the focusing power that I can feel.