Tsumego

Tsumego, a Japanese go term adopted into English, are problems mainly about life and death^[2], but also about ko, capturing races, cutting, connecting, etc. As a rule they are local problems, but a few involve the whole board.

There are many published collections of tsumego, or life-and-death problems, many in Asian languages but increasingly many in Western languages. Many collections are available on the internet. SL also has a growing collection of go problems.

Most professional players and top amateur players agree that solving tsumego is the best way to improve.

Further reading

It is important to know how to approach a life and death problem. We have a few pages discussing this topic.

• Approaching a life and death problem the right way.
• Beginner's Guide to Tsumego
• Tsumego conventions
• Approach in TsumeGo
• A New Approach to the Creation of Go Problems
• Yu Ping on Tsumego

Some related terms

• Etymology
• Life and Death
• What does main line in tsumego mean ?

Problem pages

• Problems and Exercises
• Go Problems on the Internet

Other

• Tsumego Speed And Accuracy Table
• Take a bet on life and death - a tsumego tournament variant
• Standard Normal Form

[1] Simply 死活题, because 题 = 问题 = question/problem rather than Wéiqí = Go / sǐhuó = die/live / wèntí = problems => 围棋死活 and/or 死活问题

[2] In Japanese life-and-death is written 死活 and pronounced shikatsu