Life In 19x19

Posted: **Mon Jan 19, 2015 4:45 pm**

Bill, I do not buy it that you did not learn anything about tactics during your first 26 rank improvements. You make a strong point for strategy, but I think it is fairer to say that neither strategy nor tactics can live without the other, or without judgement. (Yes, reading includes the more specialised tsumego.)

Posted: **Mon Jan 19, 2015 4:55 pm**

RobertJasiek wrote:Bill, I do not buy it that you did not learn anything about tactics during your first 26 rank improvements. You make a strong point for strategy, but I think it is fairer to say that neither strategy nor tactics can live without the other, or without judgement. (Yes, reading includes the more specialised tsumego.)

I did not claim to have learned no tactics, but my life and death was terrible. (The Maeda 8-10 kyu problems were easy.

And it takes tactics to sacrifice stones.) My tesuji consisted of the snapback and the net. I know how bad I was because, aside from the Maeda, I bought some small Nihon Kiin beginner books, so small that you could almost call them pamphlets, Basic Life and Death, Basic Tesuji, Basic Joseki, and maybe one or two others in the series. 10 kyu or DDK level. Almost every page was a revelation.

Posted: **Mon Jan 19, 2015 5:10 pm**

tentano wrote:I think nearly everyone I know sees maths as 100% bitter pill, without any sweet parts.

Why do some people feel this way about math ?

Posted: **Mon Jan 19, 2015 5:54 pm**

tentano wrote:I think nearly everyone I know sees maths as 100% bitter pill, without any sweet parts.

Smoke some marijuana and check out Euclid.

Posted: **Mon Jan 19, 2015 7:56 pm**

Tsumego are a great way to fit some go practice into moments that are too short for a game, if nothing else. That's especially true in the age of smartphones, when I can have a nice collection of problems with me everywhere I go. They don't do a whole lot for improvement unless I'm also actively playing games, though, so I can see why that's the main point of emphasis in professional advice.

Posted: **Mon Jan 19, 2015 11:50 pm**

Uberdude wrote:Just to add another case. I don't do tsumego as a habit, but wouldn't claim to have done zero like Bantari (really? you never did the play in the middle of a 3 space eye to kill problem as a beginner?). I guess over my ~10 year Go life I've probably done ~2000 tsumego. I suppose I've replayed more pro games, and that number is increasing faster. If I did more tsumego I would be stronger.

Sure, I played in the middle of 3 space eye to kill - in a game. I have also had it explained by a stronger player. Same for many other standard shapes. Most of my learning was like that. Which is one of the reasons I will never pay nor charge for Go lessons.

When and where I learned Go, we did not have Go books, and specifically no problem books. Every now and then I got my hand on some photocopy with half-faded and mostly unreadable diagrams, and treated it like a treasure for the week the owner let me have it. But none of them were really tsumego books. I remember Kageyama and two Davieses... which I still think are by far the best DDK books to be had.

I know it is very hard to understand these days, but trust me - in a communist country like Poland in the 70's - there were no Go books to be had. Ditto - no problem books. At least - I did not have access to any, maybe others did.

And, of course, there was no internet, no Go databases, no GoGoDs, none of that stuff. When we wanted to learn, we had to get together and try to figure things out, not just look it up and memorize. Thus - my approach to "studying" Go is a little different from what you might care to imagine.

You kids are spoiled, and assume it was always that easy. Heh...

Posted: **Tue Jan 20, 2015 1:55 am**

tentano wrote:I think nearly everyone I know sees maths as 100% bitter pill, without any sweet parts.

Really? I think I found the multiplication tables a bit of a chore, and I found the more esoteric aspects of Real Analysis a bit unpleasant in my final year at University, but pretty much everything else was fun. I'm sure I'm not unique

Posted: **Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:22 am**

Bill, I advanced to about 2k with essentially no tsumego, so I agree that one can advance through many of the levels with proxies for reading (proverbs or strategy or judgement). If we take all the progression levels as being equal (i.e. going from 6k to 5k is as valid as going from 4d to 5d), then my statement about reading being critical is absolutely not true.

But I do not regard all the level progressions as equivalent

And I think you'll agree that at some point you're going to hit a limit that will only be overcome by improving your reading.

Sure, tsumego is not the only way, but it's the only well-defined way. Practicing/pushing your reading in tough games against stronger players is possibly a better and certainly a more enjoyable way, but its very unclear how you would describe the discipline of this process, or even to know if you were doing it.

Posted: **Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:53 am**

quantumf wrote:pretty much everything else was fun. I'm sure I'm not unique

Correct. If taught some ways, math, like many other subjects, is great fun.
( Even the multiplication table was no chore for me; it was fun.

)

Why do some people feel this way about math ?

Posted: **Tue Jan 20, 2015 5:52 am**

EdLee wrote:
quantumf wrote:pretty much everything else was fun. I'm sure I'm not unique
Correct. If taught some ways, math, like many other subjects, is great fun.
( Even the multiplication table was no chore for me; it was fun. )
Again, non-trivial topic, with many factors.

I frequently get my freshman college students telling me that for the first time I made mathematics fun and understandable. The problem was that they did not have good high school teachers,

Posted: **Tue Jan 20, 2015 9:11 am**

Bill, how did you become interested in classic pro games? Did that happen when you were a kyu or later? Just curious...

Posted: **Tue Jan 20, 2015 10:02 am**

snorri wrote:Bill, how did you become interested in classic pro games? Did that happen when you were a kyu or later? Just curious...

When I was 4 kyu a friend gave me a book of Go Seigen's early games. Later, when I was 2 kyu I bought a set of modern pro games. I mainly studied Go Seigen, Takagawa, and Sakata.

Much later, in the 1990s, when I was 5 dan, I ran across a web site on which the author had posted material from a number of ancient books that he possessed. He had posted a large number of Castle Games, which I found fascinating, in part because ancient styles of play were quite different from my own style. I also found it interesting how, despite a very territorial style, the ancients valued thickness and the center.

That site is long gone.

Now I rely upon other sources, such as the Japanese National Diet Library ( http://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult ... stricted=0 ), Bokusekian ( http://mignon.ddo.jp/assembly/mignon/go.html ), and, of course, GoGoD.

Posted: **Tue Jan 20, 2015 11:26 am**

Thinking back on what I learned as a 4 kyu, I realized that I could give a name to one of those "unnamed go skills" that we develop. I had learned to count dame. That's not an advanced skill, but there you go.

Still it provided a heuristic that helped me tactically. It also led me astray at times. Here is an example.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$Bc A fight $$ -------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . . . W . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . . B W X . . . X . . $$ | . . . O . O O O X , . . . . . , $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Black (moi) has decided to sacrifice the

stone. The question is Black's next move. There is a small contest between the

stone and the

stones.

The

stone has two dame, the

stones have three. No question about which will win, it seems.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$Bc Gote $$ -------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . . 2 W 1 . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . . B W X . . . X . . $$ | . . . O . O O O X 3 . . . . . , $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

To me, at the time, the right play was

, which reduced the

dame to two and forced

. OC, then I came back and protected with

.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$Bc Sente $$ -------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . . 2 W . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . . B W X . . . X . . $$ | . . . O . O O O X 1 . . . . . , $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

But what I learned, to my astonishment, was that the solid connection,

, also threatens the

stones, despite the fact that they have one more dame than the

stone.

How could that be?

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$Bc Threat $$ -------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . . 3 W . . . . . . . $$ | . . . . . . . B W X . . . X . . $$ | . . . O . O O O X 1 . . . . . , $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

If White plays elsewhere,

fills a shared dame (

) to take away a dame from the

stones while adding a dame to the

stone. Now Black is ahead in the fight and there is no way that White can take the lead again. Remarkable!

It is not that counting dame is useless, but to advance I had to go beyond it.

Posted: **Tue Jan 20, 2015 11:51 am**

Uberdude wrote:Just to add another case. I don't do tsumego as a habit, but wouldn't claim to have done zero like Bantari (really? you never did the play in the middle of a 3 space eye to kill problem as a beginner?). I guess over my ~10 year Go life I've probably done ~2000 tsumego. I suppose I've replayed more pro games, and that number is increasing faster. If I did more tsumego I would be stronger.

From another thread:

Uberdude wrote: I don't think you can really talk about being stuck at a wall unless you are doing 100 tsuemgo a day and are still not improving

That was one of my favorite one-liners of yours. Do you still agree with the sentiment? [ It's hard to resist resist performing a calculation that would suggest you only felt stuck a maximum of 20 days in your life.

But I suppose it would be consistent to say that you did, but did not complain about it. ]

High dans---and please understand that I'm saying this with great respect, kindness and sympathy---are often freaks of nature. Especially those who started late and in the West. What distinguishes them is that in some way or another, they are simply willing to do something that others consider excessive. David Ward referred to a top Korean amateur who spent 8 hours a day on tsumego. There are some high dans who---even if they neglect tsumego---spend almost all day playing online, almost every day. I have heard things like, "I learned Japanese solely to study go books." Another sold his car to pay for go lessons and then moved to Asia. Most regular people do not consider this normal behavior. But we need such people in the world, or it would be very boring.

Posted: **Tue Jan 20, 2015 11:53 am**

quantumf wrote:
tentano wrote:I think nearly everyone I know sees maths as 100% bitter pill, without any sweet parts.
Really? I think I found the multiplication tables a bit of a chore, and I found the more esoteric aspects of Real Analysis a bit unpleasant in my final year at University, but pretty much everything else was fun. I'm sure I'm not unique

I found most of what I learnt about real analysis pretty sweet, but category theory was one of the worse pills I had to swallow back then. More than bitter it was spiky and salty.

Life In 19x19

Question for Dan players about Tsumego

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