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Beginner's Guide to Tsumego
  Difficulty: Introductory   Keywords: Life & Death, Problem

Tsumego is the Japanese term to describe "go problems." [1] Translated literally, "tsume" is the Chinese character for "tightening," "concentrating(as in Juice)," or "clamping down." Professional tsumego only leaves one correct choice (two at most) of moves that give the player an advantage. Not all tsumego problems are alike. There is a typology of problems to serve specific educational purposes.

Generic tsumego (life and death): These problems are designed to give the player an insight into the life and death of stones. They usually involve a minor clump of stones in a corner and depending on whose turn there is only one way to create "two eyes" and live or gouge that one point and kill the stones. These problems are good for learning about what shapes are strong and how to keep your stones alive when you invade a tight enemy territory.

Tesuji: These are sequence moves that allow you to capture attacking enemy stones or chasing them into a brick wall and taking the whole lot. These moves come in handy in the middle of the game and also in "fight?s." Not knowing tesuji allows the opponent to trick you into losing stones that are rightfully yours or putting you into a corner.

Yose: Yose is literally, "gathering together." These are moves designed to help you tighten loose corners and reduce enemy territory by a couple stones. They are especially handy when you get "sente" at the end of the game and will make the difference between victory and loss in a close matching.

Semeai: This literally translates as "fighting each other." This is basically fighting tesuji. Very helpful if you have an aggressive style? or in dealing with aggressive opponents.

Why Study Tsumego?

Doing tsumego is equivalent to solving a variety of math problems everyday in preparation for calculus or running for endurance no matter what your sport. They can not only be tedious and tiring, but produce no direct benefit in itself. However, at the end of the day, you'll find yourself making good moves very instinctively and also recognizing your weakness before your enemy brings it to your attention.

Unfortunately, the tedium of studying tsumego turns many amateur?s away and there are many dan-level amateurs ignorant of standard maneuvers.

Pros and especially insei are on a very strict regimen of tsumego. In Korea, this is even more so, since it gives them an edge in reading ability. This is why the Korean pros have a monopoly on world titles? and making new contributions to go theory and the evolution of the game in general.

How Do I Study Tsumego?

Just like any problem, the key is to solve as many problems as you can as many times as you have to for complete mastery. The greatest key to success is "repetition" pure and simple. The human brain is geared to absorb new theories or ways of thinking in 3 month cycles. You might struggle with the same type of problem and make the same wrong moves until you suddenly "see the light." After studying tsumego for several months, I guarantee that you will see the go board more clearly and advance more quickly.

The best strategy is to study problems well within your ability. Of course, if you are a beginner, you start with beginner problems until you are comfortable. Many mistakenly believe that the more difficult the problem the better. However, the ability is cumulative so "jumping" the gun leaves more gaps in your understanding and work to your disadvantage, since your play might become "quirky" or "convoluted" by using concepts beyond your grasp.

You might get frustrated at first or extremely fatigued. Patience is greatly rewarded and after a month you will find that you have a new level of endurance. The beauty of tsumego is the portability (if you are lucky enough to have access to a tsumego booklet) and can be done in tiny chunks of spare time. Just be sure to get plenty of rest and keep at it. Even 10 minutes a day every other day will pay great dividends in the future.

Two Schools of Thought

The approach to tsumego basically comes down to two schools of thought. One is the "quick and fast" and the other is the "slow but sure."

Quick and Fast: Get a sequence of tsumego problems (100 to 200) and keep going at them. Make moves solely on inspiration or instinct and check the correct move immediately. Work your way to the end and start all over again. Repeat until you completely master the problems. This approach is recommended for fast players and young players (under 13). Young players have an advantage since their brains are still plastic and many can memorize the correct sequences after a minimum number of tries. Adults may doubt this approach, but this is the approach taken by most young insei and provides the foundation for future success. Sort of like memorizing your multiplication tables.

Slow and Sure: Struggle with a problem until your are 100% certain of the solution. Never look at the answer until you come up with your own. This approach is good to for building concentration and to create a rock solid understanding of a go problem. It is also more suited to adult learning patterns.

Personally, I like the quick and fast. Everyone should first assess their learning style and stick to it.

Alex Weldon: Two questions. First, where does the "three month" figure come from, and what exactly does it mean (that 3 months after you've learned something, if you keep using it, it becomes natural?)? I feel like my cycle for absorbing things is faster than that, but I'm not a psychologist. Second, why do you say you should pick one learning style and stick to it? Surely those two methods train different things, the fast version teaching instinct and the slow teaching deep reading. Good go requires both. I tend towards fast, but I don't think it's good for me to keep doing problems that way. I've been trying to do the slow version to teach myself patience, and how to really read things out...

SnotNose: Alex Weldon raises good questions that I share. I've often seen it advised that one try to solve go problems quickly and to look at the solution if it cannot be found in a relatively short period. This smacks of self-indulgence and is counter to the situation one finds oneself in in a game. Reading and reading and reading and reading until one is sure of the correct line to a difficult L&D problem upon which the game may depend must be of some value and probably deserves more credit as a study technique than it seems to be given (not on this page, which is nearly balanced, but elsewhere).


[1] BobMcGuigan: Not just any go problems. "Tsumego" are life-and-death group status problems. There are other type of problems such as fuseki, tesuji, etc., which are not tsumego. Study of these problems is also beneficial, but the great benefit of tsumego study comes from improving your perception of life-and-death status of groups and improving your reading ability. SInce there is a well defined goal and a limited number of moves to consider tsumego problems are good for developing reading skills.

--- Drrichstyles: The "three month" figure comes from a book on scientific learning methods and is written by a Japanese neuroscientist. I think it basically applies to learning completely new skills. I included the figure just in case beginners get discouraged along the way, because go and tsumego is really rich in learning experiences but requires an entirely new way of thinking to some people. I solve the same cycle of problems month after month and I still find something new or gain a new insight. I do believe you make more progress if you focus on one aspect rather than try everything at once. Also, if you are like me and get impatient with reading out every possible variation, in the end, the routine will tire you. So I basically mean that you should stick with a program that suits you and is realistic rather than trying to imitate someone else. However, I will mention that there is a limit to how "long" you should spend reading a problem. I mention this because Korean professionals are known for their intensive practice of "reading" using tsumego and other exercises. In international tournaments they make unique and sometimes unprecedented moves but spend relatively little time thinking about moves. I've read about Korean pros forcing Japanese professionals into resignation since they play difficult to read moves that require lots of thought. Part of the advantage of tsumego is that it is not a game where you win or lose. Sometimes making the wrong move in a tsumego problem is more valuable as a learning experience. It is an issue of "quality" and solving a set number of problems quickly and repetitively is a good way for novices to get a good foundation that can be used to improve the "quality" of reading.

Personally, I would be very interested to read something about "go and mathematics" from BobMcGuigan

Charles The bit about Korean pros is probably misleading. Top pros read very fast (30-move sequence in under a second). Essentially all Korean games are played at what would be short time limits for Japanese pros; that means that Koreans regard 3 hours on the clock as normal. The consequence is probably that Korean pros expect to research openings away from the board, Japanese pros expect at least 6 hours clock time and a chance to think quite long at the board in the opening. It would be astonishing if there were really a gap in reading speed.


Dieter: If this is an article with a proprietary feel, then I'd like it to be signed. If this page is a core part of the Wiki, then I'd like to make a lot of comments and what I think to be improvements. Soon this will generate a lot of discussion. Both ways are ok for me, but I'd like to know what the intention of this page is. For the time being, I have added page links where possible, because even if it is an article, it is on this wiki for a reason.


Drrichstyles: As the originator of this article I would welcome any direct improvements to the article, however drastic. I just wanted to see a more detailed article on tsumego, because I had more questions about tsumego before committing to a program myself.



This is a copy of the living page "Beginner's Guide to Tsumego" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.