I've been doing problems out of Bozulich's Making Good Shape, but haven't been doing well at all, and it's pretty frustrating. With life and death problems, I can be pretty sure of whether or not I have solved the problem when I read it out in my head. At least, I can be pretty sure of that status of the position that I read out, even if I read it wrong. But with shape problems, I really have no idea. Here's an example:

"How can White make shape for his stones?"

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W Making Good Shape, #103
$$ --------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . X . . X X O . . . |
$$ , . . . . O , . . . |
$$ . . . . . . O . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . , X . . |[/go]

"WTF?" is basically the feeling I have upon seeing that answer. I could have stared at that position for hours and never seen the answer, and it's a one move answer. And that's pretty much the reaction I have to about half the problems. Then the next problem...

"Where is the vital point for White to make eye shape?"

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W Making Good Shape #104
$$ --------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . X O O . . |
$$ . . . . X . X O . . |
$$ , . . . . . X X O O |
$$ . . . . . . . . X X |
$$ . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

It wouldn't be possible for me to get that one wrong. I don't have to look at the answer. I could be eleventy-one years old, in a nursing home, suffering from the ravages of dementia, mad cow disease and the thrall of the one-ring, and if you laid out that position on the board in front of me, I would immediately know where to play.

A number of stronger players have suggested that this is a really good book, but I'm not sure how to get the most out of it. What's the right way to learn from these kinds of problems?

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

I had similar feeling as you when I read it at first. I have adopted a relaxed attitude towards these kind of problems. If it's not clear to me what I should do or aim at, I just look at the answer. It's more like learning a new principle. You don't read principles out and prove them, you imitate and get a feeling for them.

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was my first impulse, and I checked to verify that White is threatened on both sides, so something more aggressive on one side would leave the other side vulnerable. A hint is that the peep would be a good attack for Black.




When I was 4 kyu I got a book on shape, and took to it quickly. However, later I had trouble convincing myself of the correctness of thickness vs. territory joseki, since often the thickness seemed inadequate compensation. In a way, you have to have faith, or at least a suspension of disbelief. I think that shape is a bit easier, because you can see the efficiency of the shape play via local variations. As long as you understand how the play works, you will be able to apply your learning to your games as the opportunities arise.

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Visualize whirled peas.

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1 also suggested itself rather strongly to me. One way to look at the book is to say "OK, I can look at hundreds/thousands of pro games, and program good shape moves into my brain like that, or, I can use this book, which has looked at the pro games for me, and lets me fast track the learning"

I agree with the comment above that in many cases you just have to accept the answer as a learning experience, and that it may never have occurred to you. Its a very good book.

I think, you shouldn't focus on making a Ponnuki in your first example. That's what hindered me for the first seconds to accept this as the answers. But if you look at it, like Bill Spight mentioned, that White is threatened from both sides then the tigermouth-shape is correct almost every time (in the corner).
I think, there are a few Josekis dealing with this shape, too.

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In case it helps, I missed completely to begin with, but ended up with it before looking at the solution.

The reason wasn't trying to find a "good looking move" for White, but more what Black's going to try to do to it:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W Making Good Shape, #103
$$ --------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . x . . . |
$$ . X . . X X O . y . |
$$ , . . . . O , x . . |
$$ . . . . . . O . x . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . , X . . |[/go]

All of these "x" points look really upsetting, and that's not even beginning to look at "y" and moves that make miai of connecting out. The ponnuki I would never play here because "it's a good shape", but it ended up being the move that handled each of these "x" moves nicely. The "y" move is still awkward, but you can't have everything.

Huh, I would have gotten the first one right at a glance (and I did looking at it here). It just seems to be the only way to make any kind of shape in that situation, and avoid peeps. Just from an instinctive point of view, it doesn't seem that there's any other move that makes sense...

However, I have been mighty perplexed by that book in general, and felt that, for the most part, it was above my head.

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If it helps, I looked at the first problem, and not only did I get it wrong, I had to check several times that I wasn't confusing the 'correct' and 'wrong' diagrams. Heh, maybe I should get that book too...

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

Heh, that reminds me of when I first started studying go. My Japanese reading was rudimentary, so I mostly just looked at the pictures. Looking at the books later I realized that I had sometimes gotten things backwards.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

My difficulty with that particular problem is that I was really looking for a good shape move on the outside for getting out.

But my complaint/difficulty was not about that problem but the book generally. I expected a book a little more like Tesuji. In that book, each chapter introduces a tesuji, explains it, and gives some examples. Then the end of each chapter has some problems that apply that tesuji, or trickier versions of it. Then the end of the book has a number of problems reviewing everything. Most of the tesuji in the problems are ones you've seen earlier in the book, but maybe the application is more complicated or several moves into the read or something.

Making Good Shape has a short introductory section, but it doesn't introduce most of the shapes that you'll encounter in the problem section which makes up most of the book. And since the result isn't as clear cut as life and death, I feel like I just have to take for granted that the result is "good shape", and I can't approach the problems the way I would life and death problems. The objective isn't even really clear to me, so I don't even usually find the move in the failure diagrams, and I don't feel like I'm learning anything at all.

Maybe I need an easier shape book! It's like being told the derivative of x^2 is 2x and just accept it without having learned the fundamental theorem of calculus.

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

Other shape resources:

- Get Strong at Tesuji has a fair number of problems that are largely about shape rather than, say, life & death.
- Tesuji and Anti-Suji of Go has a lot of good shape-ish problems. I love this book. Out of print though I think.
- Charles Matthews' Shape Up series online is a more theoretical shape textbook. You might need a gobase.org account though.
- Also, Making Good Shape is a good resource Seriously, I feel like you are probably right around the point where it should start to make sense, since I found it pretty befuddling at 6k and recently started it again at 3/4k and find that it makes much more sense now, or at least the answers do. Don't obsess too much about finding the "right answer" before looking it up, and keep posting questions here. It's not like a book you have to be 1d to get something out of.

You're stronger than me, and I read Making Good Shape last year. Though, I'm sure I understood several things reading it. I was - like you - really astonished by some answers when I first tried the problems, but I understood the reasinning behind most of them (even if, occasionnally, I don't solve the same problem for the n-th time), and I dare to say that it showed in my games. I make thcker shapes, or am more aware of their thninness.

So really, keep studying it, you won't regret.

Yay, my intuition is the correct answer.

My reasoning is the same as that of the book answer, in that it is the only move that defends both weaknesses satisfactorily.

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Personally, shape is something I find quite strange in Go. By the name itself, it is more aesthetics than scientific. Often it boils down to just intuition for me - I learned shape mainly from experience and can often intuitively tell what is good shape and what is bad shape, but I often get stuck if you ask me why something is bad shape.

I suggest that you take at face value what stronger players or professionals say is good shape. As you try to apply them in your games, you will start to appreciate what makes a shape good or bad.

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I guess I will take a laid-back attitude toward the book. If I find a problem baffling, I'll look at the answer but not the explanation. I'll try to reason out why the shape is good, and if it matches the books explanation, then I'll have gotten the problem "right". When I get through the book, I'll review problems at random to see if I actually get the right moves to see if any of it stuck.

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

Good shape is very, very easy. It's the bit before that's hard.

Many people have an odd notion of what good shape means. Some people think it implies a catalogue of useful shapes and spend hours searching for it. Charles Matthews' book tends towards this view.

There are other people who try to dream up definitions based on words like "efficiency". That misses the mark, too. Sort of putting the cart before the horse.

The definition of good shape by a Japanese expert is something much simpler: "the vital point for defence".

However, that should be expanded a little. It is a bit more than simple defence. It is the move that renders a position long-term "thick", in the proper sense of thick, i.e. solid, secure from immediate attack (nothing to do with outside influence). Without the good shape move the position is still thin (i.e. has defects). With the good-shape move in place, any further move would be overconcentration. In that sense efficiency can be prayed in aid, but the trouble with focusing on efficiency is that you start thinking about getting extra points, or ko threats. Doing that actually often leads you into bad shape.

If you play good-shape moves you are playing thick moves. If you play thick moves you are playing in the style of play that the Japanese call orthodox. If you play that way, you need to be patient and learn to reap your rewards late in the game. In principle that's very easy to understand and do, but in practice most of us get carried away by the thrill of a fight and end up revelling in bad shape.

But, assuming you really want to play in the safe, orthodox way (and even fighters do for much of the time), the tricky part is learning to identify one's weak points, or what threats can occur, not just now but some way down the road.

fwiffo: your remarks about the second position suggest to me that you viewed this correctly as a "defend the vital point" position, but your remark about looking for a way into the centre in the case of the first position suggests to me you were looking for "efficiency". If so, that would be what led you astray. Bill's remarks about the weaknesses in the corner show the correct approach. Good shape defends weaknesses and makes thick positions - nothing else.

Well, in the second example, white is completely sealed in, and is forced to make life locally. I've always understood that making life locally is the last resort. And some of the problems in the book are about making shape while moving out. Some involve finding a tesuji for shape, or making a sacrifice. Some are about finding a vital point for defense, though only a few are about making life locally. But I think your point about thickness is exactly right. All the problems are about making a thick position. I would like my play to be thick!

I guess I'm better at spotting soft spots to poke at when attacking than I am at finding shape points for defending. Which is silly, because that's mostly the same thing. Maybe I'll try turning the problems around. All the points for attacking that toapzg pointed out are points I am able to find easily if I think about the problem in terms of how black should attack. If I think in terms of how to preempt those attacks, maybe I'd see or maybe I'd at least get close.

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

I'm about your strength and I have the same probelm as you with that book. I find alot of the probelms difficult and do not find the right answers. But I like the book itself and it has alot of great probelms and I learn something every time I have read it.

Maybe a couple years late on this thread, but I love this book. It's teaching me many new concepts on how to make proper thickness, and shape using defects in opponents positions, and how to correct mine. I am missing alot of the problems on my first runthrough but I can feel myself learning and applying these concepts onto the board when i play games.

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Looks like Gu Li studied the first problem to help him win the Chunlan Cup this year, go to move 19



P.S. Not sure if it is this book, but one of the shape problem books by amateurs should be read with caution, I recall some anecdote about a pro, maybe Mingjiu Jiang 7p, looking at the problems and saying quite a few were dodgy, either outright wrong or not the only move. Of course he could be wrong too, I would hope Bozulich would have got a pro to check his problems (or maybe he sourced them from a pro).