How To Tsumego
I was thinking about tsumego, not specific ones, but in general. In fact, the specific “set” of tsumego I was thinking of was the very first few beginner problems of Cho Chikun’s L&D Encyclopedia (available here).
I’ve mentioned in the past that I believe a big problem intermediate players have is that they cannot get to the next level in reading. The reason for this problem is that online sources promote bad habits in tsumego. I thought it would be nice to have a beginners’ workbook of go problems with specific questions about each problem. These questions would be identical for every problem and would guide the beginner in the right direction for proper tsumego study.
A preliminary set of questions would be:
Black to Live
- How does White kill black? List all the first moves are available for White to kill black.
- How does Black live? List the first move black must make to live.
- What are the best moves White has to refute Black’s play? List all possible answers to Black’s first move.
- Why do White’s best answers not work? In your head, think of Black’s path after White’s answer.
- How many points does Black have once he lives?
- How many points does White have if she kills?
- How many ko threats are there if Black plays the first move?
- How many ko threats are there if White kills?
- What is the value of Black’s living move?
It’s an impressive task for one problem, but all of the boldface questions are important for each problem. The additional questions can be applied to problems as well and are good practice for counting territory and value of moves. This is a slightly more advanced task.
US GO CONGRESS
8%
AUGUST 2007