Memorizing Tsumego via SRS

Time · Post by **Time** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 3:37 pm

speedchase wrote:
Time wrote:Sure, none of these are particularly difficult to read out when they're right in front of you, but what if one of these is the result of 6-7 moves worth of reading? Even if you can read it out in theory, saving 15 minutes of time on your clock is going to help quite a lot.

This example proves my point better that I could ever hope to.
In the situation you described:
IF you can read but not recognize shapes, you can see those positions and try to read them out.
If you can recognize shapes but not read, you are majorly screwed.

This proves that reading is more important right?

In what world is someone going to memorize all these shapes and be unable to read them out when the answer is known? The fact is, knowing the answer is 90% of the battle. Knowing what moves are sente against various groups makes it infinitely easier to find double threats.

For example, I know that if I have a first line descent on the long side against an L+2 group, I know that it is a ko. Knowing this, if the descent also threatens to profit on the other side, I am in business. However, even if I can in theory read out and the descent threatens a ko, it's going to be pretty difficult for me to find that move over the board if I don't already know it. Given that you know the answer is ko, I think even a 5kyu or weaker could find the ko. Without knowing that the descent threatens the corner, though, I think one would have to be very strong to see the move as a double threat.

speedchase · Post by **speedchase** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 3:48 pm

I was referring to the situation you described, where you needed to read 6-7 moves to get to the shape. Obviously if you are already at the shape on the board, either method of determination works fine.

Lamp · Post by **Lamp** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 4:33 pm

speedchase wrote:This proves that reading is more important right?

I still can't see how you are reasonably arriving at this conclusion. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems from earlier in the thread that you even agree that that pruning branches removes substantially more time from how long it takes you to figure out the answer to a life and death problem on the board than calculating variations.

Assuming this observation is correct, then under what definition of "important" could calculation possibly be more important than pruning branches by simmple recognition?

Ultimately the two skills feed off of each other, but if you just want to boil it down to the absolute simplest case, then given a single hypothetical problem, if person A can solve the problem by considering 1 branch, and person B must consider more than 1 branch, then person A will always solve the problem faster. What other measure of importance is there really?

In the case of reading 6-7 moves to get to the shape, then it comes down to comparing the issue of reading 6-7 moves deep versus 14-16 moves deep. I'm pretty certain the 6-7 move reader will be more successful at solving the problem, even if it takes them longer to get to the 6th or 7th move.

speedchase · Post by **speedchase** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 4:35 pm

My definition is "necessary or useful in the largest possible number of cases". I don't really understand what you are saying. reading is clearly more often necessary and more often useful.

karaklis · Post by **karaklis** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 9:30 pm

speedchase wrote:IF you can read but not recognize shapes, you can see those positions and try to read them out.
If you can recognize shapes but not read, you are majorly screwed.

This proves that reading is more important right?

Wrong. You can read out for hours if you like, but if you cannot judge the position correctly (i.e. know the shape) your result will be inferior. I remember that Magicwand told something like that he can smash SDK players easily with instant moves, regardless of how long the SDK ponders on reading out his moves.

speedchase · Post by **speedchase** » Thu Sep 13, 2012 3:18 pm

We aren't talking about positional judgement at all. I recommend that you go back and read the rest of this thread.

Laman · Post by **Laman** » Thu Sep 13, 2012 4:45 pm

this is becoming a bit silly. obviously, if there was one player who could not recognize any shape but could read, and another one without reading but recognizing shapes, the first would be better off. but that is an absurd model to judge usefulness of reading / shapes.

in reality, everyone uses both methods whether he likes it or not. reading move by move is the method for seeing ahead and deciding what to play. if this is what speedchase wants to hear, i hope it makes him a little more satisfied.

however, i believe that very soon one finds that he can read something, and before learning to read faster and deeper, it is more effective to learn to recognize basic shapes as a shortcut for reading. he doesn't need to do it consciously. but no one really reads out that the bent four in the corner or the bulky five are dead, that capturing three stones creates an eye or that the crane's nest tesuji captures. and all of this knowledge works as a great shortcut for your reading, allowing you to read faster, deeper, wider.

i don't know how much does solving tsumego improve one's shape recognition and i suppose it is not its primary goal. still, my favourite problems are those where my first candidate works.

(edit: English improved, typo fixed)

karaklis · Post by **karaklis** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 11:14 am

speedchase wrote:We aren't talking about positional judgement at all. I recommend that you go back and read the rest of this thread.

What Laman said.

At the end of each branch that you have read out, you need positional judgment for the decision whether the move that you have read out is good or not. So you cannot separate the reading process from the positional judgment.

speedchase · Post by **speedchase** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 11:32 am

karaklis wrote:At the end of each branch that you have read out, you need positional judgment for the decision whether the move that you have read out is good or not. So you cannot separate the reading process from the positional judgment.

That isn't what Laman said.

Laman: my thought experiment doesn't only work at the poles. I would take being able to read 20 moves ahead, and only understanding really basic shapes over reading 2 moves ahead and getting shapes perfectly.

Time · Post by **Time** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 12:03 pm

speedchase wrote:
karaklis wrote:At the end of each branch that you have read out, you need positional judgment for the decision whether the move that you have read out is good or not. So you cannot separate the reading process from the positional judgment.

That isn't what Laman said.

Laman: my thought experiment doesn't only work at the poles. I would take being able to read 20 moves ahead, and only understanding really basic shapes over reading 2 moves ahead and getting shapes perfectly.

I'm pretty sure that reading 20 moves ahead and "getting shapes perfectly" are still deep into the pole realm. Even professional players only read 20 moves ahead when it's a one way street.

speedchase · Post by **speedchase** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 2:21 pm

Time wrote:I'm pretty sure that reading 20 moves ahead and "getting shapes perfectly" are still deep into the pole realm.

Would you accept 10 moves, and getting shapes

Time wrote:Even professional players only read 20 moves ahead when it's a one way street.

And you know this because?

professionals all the time brag about how they can read 100 moves ahead. Sure they are exaggerating, but...

Redundant · Post by **Redundant** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 2:35 pm

Simple combinatorics shows that you can't actually read 20 moves deep. You're going to need to either trim branches using positional judgement, or use some sort of intuition to restrict down the collection of moves to consider. Reading 100 moves deep may be possible in the endgame, but at that point the number of moves to consider is much lower, and positional judgement is much easier.

speedchase · Post by **speedchase** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 2:52 pm

We weren't discussing intuition, we were discussing memorizing the status/ lines of groups (like the L+1)

Bill Spight · Post by **Bill Spight** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 3:08 pm

speedchase wrote:professionals all the time brag about how they can read 100 moves ahead. Sure they are exaggerating, but...

Go to move 147.

Redundant · Post by **Redundant** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 3:29 pm

speedchase wrote:We weren't discussing intuition, we were discussing memorizing the status/ lines of groups (like the L+1)

The point still stands.

Life In 19x19

Memorizing Tsumego via SRS

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