Draughts Experience

 HolIgor

Long, long ago, when I did not even suspect the existence of the remarkable game of go I used to play international draughts. It is rather interesting game, though not as complicated as go. Naturally, if the choice of moves in the game is narrower, the depth of the reading becomes deeper because people use the same brains. The great drawback of the game is abundance of draws.

At 16 I was comparatively good, almost the level of master candidate, though my game was based mainly on tactical skills. Everything was determined by my ability to see combinations which was developed by solving numerous problems. My positional judgement was not very good, but allowed me to hold on till some interesting tactical possibility comes.

Naturally, I read some books. My strength came from the fact that I solved several times all the tactical problems in a compilation of combinations from real games of the masters. I could say that after solving all those I saw solutions to most of the problems at a glance.

I read a book on strategy too, a book written by the multiple world champion Iser Kuperman. The compilation of tactical problems also belonged to him.

I'd like to share some aspects of those books that are different from what we encounter in go books.

First of all, there was a distinct classification of ideas. Take, for example, a class of combinations called Napoleon strike. A study starts from a definition, naturally. Then the significant features of the position in which the strike can happen were described. After that you had 40-50 examples and problems on this idea.

This is a little bit different to go, when the idea of a squeeze tesuji, for example, is described, but is not practiced with.

Geta is even better example. The number of times geta is missed in the kyu level games is enormous. And it has to be practiced in a number of fighting conditions, sometimes as a final stroke of the sequence, sometimes as a threat to get a profit etc.

The strategy books used a distinct classification of positions: planning a game in open position, planning the game in the classical position, planning the game with a separated piece etc. In each of the positions there were some general ideas, which were explored in depth on the examples.

I wonder if something like that is possible with go. I am too weak to undertake this endeavour, but perhaps a collective effort will bring some light to the complexity and obscurity of the game.

tapir: The tsumego go teachers assign are often ordered by theme - even if given without the definition. Good problem collections are as well. For most of us the problem is lack of practice imo, as most have a basic understanding about different techniques though fail to apply it in their games (at least I do).