I’d like that. 
I’d like that too.
And what about adding something like Fischer timing? For each correct answer some time is added. Maybe with a decreasing increment, so that fast players don’t get more time per puzzle than they need to solve one.
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I wouldn’t mind a light touch of Fisher 
Usually the purpose of Fischer timing is to allow you to continue playing moves indefinitely at a steady pace. If we tune it so that every player is guaranteed to time out eventually (by gradually decreasing the increment or just setting it super short to start with) then I feel it doesn’t change much compared to just having a longer starting absolute time.
(the difference would be that a fast player could play a little bit longer than a slow player, but I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not?)
On another note, I’m uncertain how to deal with ko. I avoided ko completely so far to keep it simple, but it would be nice to include in the future. So how do we cleanly sort everything into 3 categories?
It makes sense that “alive” just includes unconditional life, and “dead” just includes unconditional death (and I am counting bent 4 in the corner as unconditional death for the purposes of this game - maybe debatable).
It also seems logical that a position where black can live, or white can start a ko to kill, would count as unsettled. The left board below is an example of this.
However, the right board is tricky - it’s a kind of thousand year ko. Either player can start a ko for the life of the black group, but the opponent will take the ko first, and an extra approach move is required to win it.
Would it be too confusing to classify this as “unsettled”? I guess it’s fine if we interpret unsettled as “this group might either live or die at the end of the game, depending on the circumstances” * rather than “the status is determined by who plays first locally”.
* This is of course also true for some “unconditionally” alive/dead groups… I think if we start trying to formalize completely these categories we’ll end up with something like the Japanese rules 
I guess I’d like some input on which of these options people prefer:
- Avoid ko completely to keep it simple.
- Include some simple ko positions (like the left one above), but avoid annoying things like thousand year ko’s.
- Anything goes - everything that is “ko-ish” can fit into the “Unsettled” category.
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In the meantime, I’ve added some more shapes to balance out the alive and dead counts.
There is now at least one position included for each eye-shape of size six (except the “linear” ones which are kind of boring at six spaces).
Here are all the size-six shapes so far:
(green is alive, red is dead, blue is unsettled)
The total counts now are:
Dead: 53
Alive: 52
Unsettled: 17
Total: 122
The unsettled category remains rare - but if we start including ko it would grow quickly 
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If we want to fine-tune, there are at least 6 categories, even without including 10000 year ko.
Suppose a black group is threatened. Its status may be
- alive
- alive if black defends, ko if tenuki.
- alive if black defends, dead if tenuki.
- ko if black defends, ko if tenuki
- ko if black defends, dead if tenuki
- dead
That’s too many options. Better put anything which is not clearly alive or dead in the “unsettled” category.
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Do you want help with creating unsettled ko shapes? ^^
I think it would make sense to have everything where l&d depends on winning the ko as ‘unsettled’, unless its some wird case of eternal life or double ko seki or something xD
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There’s also some kinds of tricky shapes with defects like (from the book I mentioned above)
I think a lot of the groups at the moment are fairly solidly connected right?
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Good point!
Sure! Just give me some time to set up the problem creation tool so that you can export the file and send it to me when it’s done.
Indeed, I decided to limit the nakade collection to solidly connected shapes. Reading out a weakness like the one above feels like quite a separate skill than internalizing the shapes themselves - like in this case I would read “atari, atari, dead shape”.
So if we include shapes with weaknesses I think I’d want them in a separate collection, so that you can choose which skill you want to train.
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Well you do have the
which involves reading/remembering the details of the six point corner shape right? Fill atari, place at the vital point for a shortage of liberties to avoid a ko…
It’s not too much different.
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Yep, I’d kind of like to split that off too…
I just feel like the “pure” nakade shapes are more generally applicable and useful compared to shapes which rely on very specific weaknesses/sequences… but I do realize it’s hard to draw a clean line between these categories. I’m just making it up as I go along, and sharing my thoughts here to get some feedback.
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Yeah and I’m just randomly interacting and adding comments 
I think it’s really cool anyway.
Maybe I’m kind of not super against ones that require a few steps of reading, but I suppose those will typically be harder, given there might be a few ways to make a mistake, like the wrong atari in the above example, or the ko variation in the six point eye space.
Once they still involve some kind of nakade they’re probably still about visualising how you can create certain shapes inside.
There’s these kinds of ones, where you make the nakade because of a shortage of liberties
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It would be easy to create tons of status problems by slightly modifying tsumego positions - but these are the shapes and the type of thinking you already get to practice by solving tsumego. So in terms of contributing something new, I’m thinking the “status game” should focus on positions which don’t make for good tsumego by themselves (like a nakade shape that is just straight up dead or alive).
Not to say I’m opposed to having some more reading-heavy shapes as well, I just want to think through how it’s best to sort them into categories. For instance two broad categories that might be possible to keep separate are “basic/general/common shapes which you should just memorize” versus “specific/tactical/rare shapes which require some reading” (you could memorize them but it probably makes more sense to just read it when it comes up in games).
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Guess its hard to make strict line between those, even some simple straight-3 requires reading one move ahead… and hey it could be alive if black captures 3 stones and then plays in the middle spot with white passing xD
You could make new ones with same shapes wby giving them an ouside liberty, or would it be better to only include shapes that are fully surrounded so that it literally just depends on the shape inside?
I’d like a list of ones I got right and wrong at the end so I can study. Maybe with links to static pages for the problems, or just a list of the pictures.
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I think the key to most life and death of a group is the fact that a stone thrown into a group of the other color will “absorb” up to three adjacent intersections as one liberty. And if more than one stone has been thrown in, imagine it captured and see if the resulting space can be “absorbed” by playing one stone.
So, if the answer is ‘yes’, then the location in which the stone(s) are thrown can only make one eye, so if there is no room for a second (disconnected) eye, the group is dead.
Look at any list of the dead shapes and see what happens when you apply these rules.
Note: this is the first time I’m writing it down, so there may be some further work needed for completeness.
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Not sure I understand what you mean, but you seem to forget that a group can live by seki.
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Sorry, i didn’t understand.
When analyzing a pure nakade shape (ignoring things like the special properties of the corner), the key question to ask is whether it’s possible to almost fill the eyeshape with a killing shape.
(It sounds like @david265 is giving an explanation for why these shapes in particular are killing - I’m just linking them for reference, and the term “almost fill” is useful to know about)
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