How to get better at Go?

[Bill Spight]

I was just surfing around at Sensei's and found the following approach to study tsumego:

http://senseis.xmp.net/?BeginnersGuideToGoProblems

1) Quick and Fast (just guess the first move)
2) Slow and Sure (read out until you found the solution)

Which one should be tried first when working on a certain tsumego collection? (I've never used the first approach, so maybe that's the reason why I've never become strong..)

First, let me point out that that is a false dichotomy. They are the extremes of the calculation approach: I play here, he plays there, I play here, . . . Not only are there in between approaches, like the three move approach gowan talks about, but there are other types of approaches, as well.

For instance, you could ask where your opponent would play, if it were his turn. Or you could ask where you would play if you could play two moves instead of just one. Or you could visualize a final position, and then ask how to get there. Another idea, which typically takes software, is, after trying to solve the problem for a time, ask what the next two plays are on the main line and try to solve the remaining problem.

IMO the read it out approach is the worst for absolute beginners (while it may be good for strong players). Go is not about reading everything out. Tic-tac-toe is. To make an analogy with language, absolute beginners do not yet have a vocabulary to form sentences with. They should be learning basic patterns of life and death, not reinventing the wheel from scratch.

Let me introduce the ideas of time and chance. Give yourself a certain amount of time in which to solve a problem. I kind of like two minutes. But when I was in training I gave myself fifteen minutes. These days I often give myself 10 seconds. Once having decided on a time limit, what is the chance that you will solve the problem in that time? A good rule of thumb is to try problems which you have a fifty-fifty chance of solving in the time limit.

[Bill Spight]

This might be a good thread in which to recommend "three move reading". Kato Masao 9p published several books on life-and-death, tesuji, etc., in which he advocated three move reading. This works as follows: you choose a move, then think about what your opponent would/could do in response, then what your next move would be in response to that. Repeat this with a different choice of your first move until you find something you think is good. Some pros seem to think that if you can consistently do three move reading it will take you to dan level amateur strength. I think that if you begin with three move reading and keep it up before long it will become automatic and your reading will progress to greater depth.

One merit of this approach is that it automatically builds deeper sequences. One obvious way that happens is that sequences concatenate. ABC and CDE become ABCDE. Another is that key points become obvious in the process and if a certain three move sequence leaves a key point unoccupied, you may well see further moves to occupy or control that point.

[SmoothOper]

Strictly in my opinion, Go is superior to chess, in that there is a substantial visual component to studying the board, and doing whole board calculations. I don't think there is any analog in chess in this regards.