Choice of three Tsumego books

[blindgod]

I'm around 18 kyu and a number of people online and at the club I go to have suggested getting a book on life and death to improve my reading (which is really bad). I was thinking of three books and looking for suggestions of which might be the most useful:

1001 Life and Death Problems
Life and Death by James Davies
Get Strong at Life and Death

any thoughts are appreciated.

[snorri]

Davies. No question. It's a must have and it does have problems at your level (as well as harder ones that you'll eventually have to master.)

[jts]

In an abstract sense the Davies book is "better" than the other two, but what you really need now is a problem book, and the Davies book is not a problem book. I would suggest Graded Go Problems for Beginners, vol. 2, but either of the two problem books you've suggested should be useful.

(Of course, you could always buy two books!)

[Boidhre]

WBaduk's free PC app (also a free iPad/iPhone app) will give you access to a load of problems: http://www.wbaduk.com/ Drill the beginner problems until you can solve them on sight, then start on the Pre-Intermediate (Easy) problem set, which aren't trivial at all for ddk level.

1001 L&D Problems 1 move to kill/live problems are good for our level. You can go onto the more difficult ones 3 moves and 5 moves as your reading improves.

Don't neglect tesuji, so consider Graded Go Problems for Beginners 2.

Also some people (not me) swear by http://www.goproblems.com/ for free problems.

You can also consider Many Faces of Go for access to Problems, or SmartGo for access to the goproblems.com ones.

L&D by Davies, I've not read so I won't comment.

[spamthachb]

I'd also second the WBaduk app and the SmartGo/SmartGo Kifu app as pretty neat ways to do tsumego and get instant feedback. That being said, it's quite easy (for me at least) to base my answers on intuition alone and run through the problems without reading since I get that immediate feedback (especially for the Beginner problems on WBaduk)... which defeats the purpose of doing tsumego I feel. If you can really slow down and force yourself to read for even the easy problems to develop your reading skills, then they're quite helpful. I should mention that SmartGo/SmartGo Kifu are not free though.

I like Graded Go Problems 2 a lot because I end up really taking the time to read out all the variations and knowing for sure that you have the right answer without checking is pretty rewarding. However, not all the problems that I've encountered in that book are L&D problems so those specific ones may not help with your reading. However, they are still helpful for other aspects of playing the game.

I haven't finished reading L&D by Davies but I'm having a really hard time getting through it. It's not a problem book but I guess it can help you identify certain common L&D shapes.

I did like the Tesuji book by Davies though. That might be pretty hard though. I remember I spent a couple of hours straight really focusing on reading the problems at the end of the chapters out and promptly got a splitting headache when I put the book down . But I do feel like that's the book that really first challenged me to read the way you're supposed to... so that might be helpful.

Overall, I feel that I've gotten better practice reading from books rather than programs because I can avoid the temptation of just trying something out in the programs and seeing if it works. At the same time, having those problems on your phone to take out during any kind of downtime is amazingly convenient.

[Boidhre]

I'd also second the WBaduk app and the SmartGo/SmartGo Kifu app as pretty neat ways to do tsumego and get instant feedback. That being said, it's quite easy (for me at least) to base my answers on intuition alone and run through the problems without reading since I get that immediate feedback (especially for the Beginner problems on WBaduk)... which defeats the purpose of doing tsumego I feel. If you can really slow down and force yourself to read for even the easy problems to develop your reading skills, then they're quite helpful. I should mention that SmartGo/SmartGo Kifu are not free though.

I like Graded Go Problems 2 a lot because I end up really taking the time to read out all the variations and knowing for sure that you have the right answer without checking is pretty rewarding. However, not all the problems that I've encountered in that book are L&D problems so those specific ones may not help with your reading. However, they are still helpful for other aspects of playing the game.

I haven't finished reading L&D by Davies but I'm having a really hard time getting through it. It's not a problem book but I guess it can help you identify certain common L&D shapes.

I did like the Tesuji book by Davies though. That might be pretty hard though. I remember I spent a couple of hours straight really focusing on reading the problems at the end of the chapters out and promptly got a splitting headache when I put the book down . But I do feel like that's the book that really first challenged me to read the way you're supposed to... so that might be helpful.

Overall, I feel that I've gotten better practice reading from books rather than programs because I can avoid the temptation of just trying something out in the programs and seeing if it works. At the same time, having those problems on your phone to take out during any kind of downtime is amazingly convenient.

Very true, though I've found EasyGo's keeping track of all my wrong attempts keeps me honest.

[nyuubi]

The graded go problems for beginners series is just amazingly good for weak kyu to bring the strength up.

[SoDesuNe]

If you are 18-kyu, I would entirely stick to the Graded Go Problems For Beginner Vol. 1 and 2. If you can solve those two then you can consider (in order of difficulty - imo): 1001 Life-and-Death Problems, Graded Go Problems For Beginners Vol. 3, Tesuji and Get Strong at Tesuji.

[blindgod]

Thanks everyone. I didn't mention the Graded Go Problems books because I'm in the middle of volume 2 (having worked my way through volume 1).

My personal experience with this is somewhat frustrating in that I originally started going through volume 2 around last August. I then got discouraged in September and gave up Go until about February. So now I'm going through volume 2 again and have found that I'm at the same level as I was in August. The first 100 or so problems I can do easily with very few wrong. 101-150 or so I have a harder time with and get maybe a quarter wrong. 151-200 I have a very hard time with and get more than half wrong. And 201 on I get most wrong.

My specific problem is with reading, since I can usually easily solve problems concerning direction of play, opening, and (to a lesser extent) tesuiji. It's life & death and the capturing problems that are the most difficult. This is the reason that I asked about a book on Life & Death since there seems to be a consensus that doing tsumego is the best way to improve reading.

As a side note, I'm lucky enough to have access to Davie's L&D (and the rest of the Elementary Go series) and 1001 L&D Problems through a local college library. However, they aren't always available and some of them are marked up, which is why I'm looking to buy my own copies.

But like I said, all suggestions are appreciated. And thank you.