Hi guys,

Usualy I do lots of life & death problems because at some point I lost all my games because of that.
Howhever since I think I've gotten to a point where I think my l&d is good enough for now I've been trying to go through 501 tesuji problems instead.

Howhever my experience has been horrible. I read a bunch of variations, read read read. Then finaly when I think I have the solution it seems that I forgotten about one variation or something which changes everything.

It feels like my reading is ok enough in itself, I can imagine the moves in my head. I just read the wrong moves and forget about certain very important things like the oponent being able to make a ko in that case etc.

Is this book a hard book for sdk on tesuji or did I just find my weak spot ?

Thanks,
Otenki

A bit of both ?

The book is aimed at high SDK-low dan level in my opinion. Definitely harder than vols 1-2 of same series and e.g. Get strong at Tesuji. I personally view it as a stepping stone to the Segoe tesuji dictionary, and really like the material, and the fact it's not organized by themes.

Started working on it at lower SDK-level myself though, so it should be ok for you too, especially if you take it as a text book, as I did: first try to solve the problems for a while, but then check the answers and see where you were wrong & try to think why. If you try to read absolutely everything before checking answers, might be too hard. Good book for exposing you to different kinds of tesuji "in the wild". YMMV.

I second that : ) Although I don't think the Go/Segeo Tesuji Dictionary is really harder than 501 Tesuji problems (maybe the A-problems ^^).

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Well K74 is a book that seems to be readable if you're about 5kyu, so it's definately worth studying.

But the book can still be useful for people at 5-Dan so if you're frustrated, realize that 2-Dan people will get like 25% of the problems wrong, though they are likely spending 45 seconds to look at the problem.

I like to think of certain books as being something that takes you from level x to level y, rather than something you can just polish off in six months reading...


a lot of these 1990s Intermediate Bozulich series books just take people on the the next stage after the 7 beginner books of the 70s...


most of the books have an interesting range [according to a few sources/opinions]


K51 Get Strong at the Opening - 1996 - [not sure]
K52 Get Strong at Joseki, Volume 1 - 1995
K53 Get Strong at Joseki, Volume 2 - 1996
K54 Get Strong at Joseki, Volume 3 - 1996 - [useful 10 Kyu to 1 Kyu]
K55 Get Strong at Invading - 1995 - [useful from 20 Kyu to 2-Dan]
K56 Get Strong at Tesuji - 1996 - [useful 25 Kyu to 1-Dan]
K57 Get Strong at the Endgame - 1997 - [useful 5 Kyu to 5-Dan]
K58 Get Strong at Life and Death - 1997 -[useful 15 Kyu to 3-Dan]
K59 Get Strong at Handicap Go - 1998 - [useful 5 Kyu to 7-Dan][Robert thinks it's more kyu level]
K60 Get Strong at Attacking - 2000 - [useful 10 Kyu to 3-Dan]
K71 Five Hundred and One Opening Problems - 2002 - [useful 10 Kyu to 5-Dan]
K72 One Thousand and One Life-and-Death Problems - [useful 9 Kyu to 5-Dan]
K73 Making Good Shape - [not sure][some said 6 kyu to ??]
K74 501 Tesuji Problems - useful 5 Kyu to 5-Dan]
K75 The Basics of Go Strategy [not sure - probably similar to Strategic Concepts of Go - 5 kyu to 3-Dan]
K76 All About Ko - [useful 10 Kyu to 1-Dan]


seems like half of them are good for 5 kyu
and half of them you could start sooner...

and it seems like one third of the set tap out at 1-Dan/3-Dan/5-Dan each

basically, any of those books, will last anyone quite a while...and i like to think of them as a set, like a whole toolbox...


I wonder how many people have bought the whole set, found it as a smooth path to go from mid level single digits into something like 2 Dan actually...

I was about 9-8k EGF when I wrote this original post. The book was obviously way too hard for me back then. I`m currently redoing this book and seems to be a rather intresting experience now. (about EGF 4k now)

The cool thing about this book is that I know and understand (I think) most of the tesuji shapes in this book from other problem books (like yi-chang-ho`s and tesuji by davies). But this book punishes really hard in case you blindly follow your gut and read quickly. (yet not thoroughly) In this case you will get a lot of problems wrong. You need to not only understand the shapes, you need to read exact variations which lead to victory. Last night I missed a descent in a variation which lead to a split (and death) of two groups. If this happens in a game it can mean game-over.

I think this book is teaching me to be exact, which is feat every good player needs to get I guess

Otenki

Looks like a book I'll get something of!

_________________
Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

501 tesuji is a hard book.