I don’t know how this little beginner thread on ladder-breakers that I innocently started a couple of days ago quickly spiraled into a discussion about computational complexity and AI algorithms (and the occasional meme), but please, keep it going! I’m not going to understand three quarters of what you’re all saying, but I’m loving the fact that the community is so active and passionate about the game! 
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Welcome to the forums! Eventually we will get to a linguistic debate. Possibly about ladders, staircases and twisting sheep’s heads…
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Good to know. I love linguistic debates! Just this morning I went down pretty deep into a rabbithole about employer/employee relationships and work ethics, all starting from an observation about how, at least in my native language, people apparently misuse a single three words expression…
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I remember a Japanese professional visiting the European Go Congress, and commenting “I had forgotten that people could be so passionate about the game of go”. In particular she was impressed by how, as soon as two people started playing a game, a crowd of people would gather to watch them play, even when the two players were lower-ranked than the watchers. People were just so passionate about the game that they’d be interested in watching any game!
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I have one advice to give. Read the ladders. Don’t draw a straight line on the board. Actually read the sequence. There are three reasons for this:
- Drawing a straight line works most of the time, but fails more often that you’d think (in particular because of the “failed third-line ladder breaker” that someone mentioned above).
- If there are both a white stone and a black stone on the path, drawing a straight line won’t help, you need to read precisely.
- In addition, drawing a straight line won’t help you improve, whereas reading the ladder will help you improve. The experienced players appear to “immediately” see whether the ladder works or not, because they read very fast.
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I don’t know about that. Using simple geometry can speed up the reading process a lot, if the ladder is long. I try to only read those parts of a ladder, that are close to potential ladder breaking stones.
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A ladder exercise I saw on twitter
Hi.
Yes. And using an electronic calculator can speed up mental calculations a lot… But won’t help you improve your mental calculating skills. Ladders are easy to read. By refusing to read them, you’re refusing to improve your reading skills.
Thank you for sharing this. Is there a way that you could make the exercise available to those who are not twitter-savvy and do not speak Japanese?
So it’s possible to be 8d on Fox and still misread ladders.
They are straightforward as long as no other stones are in the way, but they are often long sequences. A ladder from one corner to another consists of about 40 stones, reading the whole sequence takes time. For me, just looking at where they are in relation to star points is way faster.
I’m not refusing to read them, I’m using short cuts to read long ladders, and even if I did refuse to read long ladders there would be a lot of tsumegos that don’t involve long ladders to improve my reading skills.
And to clarify I’m talking about long ladders, because short ladders are easy to read without special reading techniques.
from a recent qualification game
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