I’d do this. First I would take this list, see the basic shapes and initially I would fanatically play ONLY them, even if in some cases they are considered “slow”:
The judgement of what is slow and what is reckless, comes later. Now, knowing the shapes and playing only them does not count as “study”, so once I had done that, I would study this book:
Once you know basic shapes and direction of play, even without any knowledge of life and death or invading and fighting, you have a strong basis to build and see what needs to be learned next, what fights you found hard and what practical life and death occured in your games.
Assuming you have strong shapes, focusing on the direction of play imho gives the best way for assessing what you need to focus and learn from all the other sectors of learning in the game.
As said, i would rather do this first as searching some inspiration. I mean if I have to chose. The inspiration is in the help of the stronger, and it’s better being a direct improvement of my own moves.
Life and Death. Everything else emerges from or depends on this in one way or another. Failing at this will absolutely hold back your game as well.
For example, you know to take the corners first, then sides, then center, right? The reason being it is easier to take territory with fewer stones near edges, of course. But if you can’t stay alive in a corner, know when you can be invaded there, or stop your opponent from invading and living there or escaping, then concepts about openings are kind of pointless, right? Knowing what you need to create or destroy a living shape is thus more foundational than anything else, in my personal opinion. I firmly believe this, but I am an SDK, so take what I say with a grain of salt…
fuseki. its a great introduction to strategy, and lets you actual start in a decent position that you can leverage instead falling into the kyu trap of flailing around trying to save something and losing everything
I entirely disagree about this one. I would answer with ‘fuseki’ if the question was ‘If I would ignore one thing in studying go, which one would it be?’
Here is my humble suggestion: eyes, half eyes, and false eyes. Obviously a sub-topic of life and death, but I think you can do a lot of tsumego without ever formally learning this (I certainly did). I learned about “shoulders” (corner stones needed to make a real eye) from a Guo Juan lecture and I think it’s one of the most valuable things I learned, as it seems to come up in so many of my games (8k levels). Just now I had a game with a 90 point life and death situation resting on a false eye neither player noticed.
Learning concretely and explicitly is my style, so internalizing the basic idea of “two shoulders” on the edge and “three shoulders” in the center was really illuminating.
I think it’s the hane at T12. This takes one shoulder, and for S11 to be a real eye black needs to block at T11. Then black needs two more shoulders R12 and R10 but only had one move before white takes the other
I read that “shoulders” thing regarding eyes for the first time a week or two ago; feels like a lightbulb revelation.
Hey @gia, iirc you were asking for recommendations for a one-off lesson a while back. Similar to that, BenKyo (full disclosure, I’m one of his Patreon supporters) has a deal where he flicks through some of your games and gives an opinion on general direction to study. I’m sure other tutors offer similar, this is just the one I know of. Might be worth considering.
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