I h8 Tsumego

[Kansai-ben]

am I the only one who hates solving tsumego problems?
I love tesuji, they are funny I think, and I love opening problems and making good shape.

but tsumego ..... nooooooo, come on, who invented this?

I am KGS 11k after re-started my go-career (formerly 18k KGS) but I think I`ll never get beyond KGS 4k+ when I won`t study tsumegos?

therefore the question rises: is it useless to continue playing go when i know i`ll never like a major part of it, namely tsumego? I mean, it ain`t any fun at all playing around 10k for ever ...

[Solomon]

Maybe you're focusing on ones that are too hard for you. You should try a mix of easy, medium, and difficult problems. If you're serious about improving, you've got to struggle a little; no pain no gain.

[Kansai-ben]

hmmm .... i also failed at a lot of tsumego probs, but i still like them.

but even if i CAN solve tsumego ... it`s still boring for me. "so what?" is what i ask myself after solving one.

greetings to china, btw

[HermanHiddema]

I've never been much of a fan of tsumego, and never systematically studied them at any point in my go career, yet I still reached 4 dan.

[EdLee]

A few ideas to ponder:
- Some young people and young children can memorize tens of thousands of L&D problems, much like young children who can learn languages with thousands of characters. This can be more difficult for adults.

is it useless to continue playing go...

- Define "useless".
- What Araban said.
- What HermanHiddema said; in particular, there is at least one pro (Chinese 7p) who also never systematically studied L&D. So, good luck.

is it useless to continue playing go...

- Yes, Go is too hard; consider to quit now.

[Kansai-ben]

I've never been much of a fan of tsumego, and never systematically studied them at any point in my go career, yet I still reached 4 dan.

WOW!

[SoDesuNe]

There is this Go-player in my Club, who read - MAYBE - half the Go-books I read, who solved NOT EVEN CLOSE half the amount of Tsumegos or Tesujis I solved, who started to play Go like one year before I started and yet he is solidly four ranks stronger than I am and steadily improving (but yeah, I am, too ; )).

Tsumego is just practicing patterns and visualizing stones. If you are good in visualizing, if you have a good memory and if you have a good structure when searching for the right move (like not forgetting about certain counter-moves) you will need considerable less Tsumego-practice to sharpen your reading.
But yeah, less does not mean no Tsumegos at all.

Still, if you solve Tesuji and shape-problems I think you will make it through the SDK-ranks. The hardest part in Go anyway is strategy.

[Kansai-ben]

The hardest part in Go anyway is strategy.

I whish I was on that level already ... but I know I have 2 go through some tsumegos first ...

[bayu]

Enjoy tesuji problems. Nothing wrong with that (I prefer them to L&D as well. I only started to do L&D after I kind of ran out of tesuji problem resources) and they serve the purpose of helping your reading skill. It is very probable that you will start to appreciate tsumego problems when you're a couple of stones stronger than now. And if not, don't worry and enjoy the game.

[Dusk Eagle]

I didn't do any tsumego until I was 8k, and at the beginning I really hated it. I didn't start to enjoy it until I was ~1d. So maybe you'll learn to enjoy it later in your go career . I can say with certainty that tsumego really helped me improve. If you struggle with enjoying tsumego, I recommend listening to music at the same time - it really helps me stay interested in the activity for longer.

[tchan001]

Read what Cho Chikun has to say.
http://tchan001.wordpress.com/2011/06/0 ... lculation/

[entropi]

What is there to hate about tsumego? It's all about reading and if you hate reading, how on earth can you enjoy playing Go?

You may find them a bit boring because they lack the competitive aspect of Go but that's not a reason to hate them.

Maybe you should choose easier problems involving shapes which are likely to occur in actual play (e.g. derived from joseki).
If you see a shape you know from tsumego in a game and kill a group with that knowledge, you may start enjoying tsumego

[Koosh]

I did not enjoy, nor did I see the point of Tsumego when I was double digit kyu.
Little by little, I started to realize that the most important step to improving was improving my tactical thinking. Opportunities to capture key stones and cut in mischievous ways are often difficult to see, especially when a position hasn't even been played out yet.

To sharpen this part of your mind, you need to either play against stronger players and have them constantly introduce you to these tactics on the board, or you need to play against yourself (tsumego) and encounter these tactics in this way.

Have fun with the game, and eventually you may too start to realize just how important this type of thinking is.
There is a certain type of pleasure to spending a bunch of time practicing life and death, and then doing something completely beyond what you thought your level was on the board. It's something to look forward to.

[xed_over]

I hated tsumego until I learned how to solve them -- before, I would always be frustrated with not knowing what the opponent might play in response to my attempts to solve it (thinking only one-sidedly about trying to solve, instead of trying to find the "best" move/response for both sides)

I learned this concept on how to solve tsumego from James Davies book Tesuji. Ironically, that chapter seemed to be missing from his book Life and Death (or I just overlooked it).

[malweth]

I was not a fan of tsumego at DDK. I tried (especially Davies' L&D, others) and the only ones I liked even remotely were the Korean Problem Academy's early sets (1-3 move solutions - you can find them on GoBase, but it requires a paid account).

This all changed around 5k. Suddenly I learned how to read through solutions. Now that I'm around 1k (or higher, lower?) easily half or more of my study is tsumego. They're enjoyable once you're able to get >50% correct (>30% even...) - I still find extremely difficult problems no-fun... practice in or just above your ability.