🎇 Inspirational puzzle collections for all levels!

Teaching
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In this topic I will share my list of the inspirational puzzle collections that I discovered when looking for puzzles for my puzzles thread.
With inspirational puzzles I mean puzzles that mentally stimulate you to solve them and enjoy them so much that irresistibly you will be drawn to the next puzzle of the collection.

For every collection I will give some additional info:

  • name of collection (link)
  • author
  • what level?
    B = beginners (~25-20 k), I = intermediate (~20-10 k), A= advanced (~10-1 k), D = dan (~1-9 d)
  • number of puzzles (NoP)

When I find new puzzle collections that are in my honest opinion inspirational I will add them. So work in progress. More to follow.

Inspirational puzzle collections

Name Author Level NoP
Book of pure pleasure @xhu98 A 37
Guan Zi Pu Collection Volume @vougalar A-D 539
Life and death problems @Michael Liu A 82
Common Corner Life and Death @aesalon A ~40
gogameguru’s easy serie @Badukisto B-I-A 60
The Genius of Akaboshi Intetsu @xhu98 A-D 62
OldLand @Shinkenjoe B-I-A 70
1000 Problems by Wang Zhipeng @Bezlikii_Go I-A 205
Life and death interesting problems @Silentgentleman A-D 28
Jennica’s Tsumego @jmdingess I-A-D 90
Japanese tsumego (at)highdanplayer420* I-A 100
Seigen’s Tesuji Dictonary I (at)Lurid_bolete A 40
Dan Level Problems (at)ogo32217 D 14
Cho Chikun Encyclopedia of Life and Death - Elementary (at)walken B 899
Cho Chikun Encyclopedia of Life and Death - Intermediate (at)walken I-A 862
Cho Chikun Encyclopedia of Life and Death - Advanced (at)walken A-D 793
(* (at) instead of @ because there is a maximum of 10 persons you can @ in a post.)

“My” puzzles
In the winter of 2020/21 I put a lot of puzzles on OGS Puzzles.
Some of those collections are truly inspirational. Examples of classical go style that show elegance and subtlety.

Name Author Level NoP
Hashimoto’s selection of Kanzufu @Atorrante A 304
Maeda: Father of Tsumego 1 @Atorrante A 225
Maeda: Father of Tsumego 2 @Atorrante A 210
Shusai’s Curious Mechanics of Life & Death 1 @Atorrante A-D 73
Shusai’s Curious Mechanics of Life & Death 2 @Atorrante A-D 45
Shusai’s Curious Mechanics of Life & Death 3 @Atorrante A-D 39
Shusai’s Curious Mechanics of Life & Death 4 @Atorrante A-D 14

Enjoy, but be careful …
image

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What makes a tsumego collection “inspirational”?

Also, heads up on that typo in the table.

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Kind of expected this question and that is why added “in my honest opinion” :grinning:

(What typo?)

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Of xhu98 as xhue98?

Well, could you define your personal criteria that makes you find them inspirational?

It seems hard to people to get interested in the thread if they don’t know why those collections have been selected.

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With inspirational puzzles I mean puzzles that mentally stimulate you to solve them and enjoy them so much that irresistibly you will be drawn to the next puzzle of the collection.

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Make me think of some snacks or sweets you can’t stop eating.
Maybe “addictive” but inspirational is ok.

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Why is there a rice emoji in the title?

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Fun fact: in Japanese, America is spelt 米国, which translates literally to “Riceland”.

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No particular reason at all.
Was looking for another emoji (fireworks), but couldn’t find it, so I picked one that looks nice.
But if you know one that is more fitting I will replace it. :grin:

New avatar?
Or are you an imposter?

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:fireworks: :sparkler: :sparkles:
:fireworks: :sparkler: :sparkles:

:+1: :bamboo: :confetti_ball:
:+1: :bamboo: :confetti_ball:

Yes, new avatar. Still the Genuine Pedant here.

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Thanks for the mention @Atorrante - just to clarify, The Book of Pure Pleasures was adapted from the ancient Chinese collection Wangyou Qingle Ji, and The Genius of Akaboshi Intetsu was adapted from Intetsu’s book, Genran.

As for collections which I have actually co-authored, you may check them out below:
Spindrift (PREVIEW)
Planet (PREVIEW)

Or read about them here:

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Update: post 1 of this topic is a work in progress. I added several collections over the last 5 days. I think the list of collections is fairly complete now.

In choosing the collections I worked with three criteria:

  • the collections should be inspiring, making you want to do more puzzles of that particular collection and open doors for you that were closed before.
  • the collection should be user friendly: there should be some hints available. Although I hope you don’t need them, the absence of hints might frustrate you (and that is what I want to avoid). Sometimes you just don’t see the first move. But once you have seen it, finding rest of the sequence often is “relatively easy”.
  • the collection should have some body, meaning a substantial amount of puzzles. There are just too many 1-2 puzzle collections. If you want to seriously solve puzzles greater collections are convenient.
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