Tsumego Book

Ehy there guys! As I read in many teaching or general posts,it seems that a very good way to develop reading ability as well as general reasoning is to do a lot of tsumego problems. That’s why I’m here asking you an advice about what book I should have. I’d like to focus on Tsumego books that start from my level (about 12kyu) or a little easier, to lead me to an improvement to higher kyu. It would be ideal to have many problems with explained solution,when needed. Thanks a lot!! :blush:

PS as I said, my main interest is Tsumego now, but don’t feel bad about advicing any other books that you know being very good or very important for my level :wink:

Hey there @nicolo_ruggeri_52! Since we are talking about tsumego puzzles, I would gladly recommend the OGS puzzle selection! All content is created by our fellow users who contribute greatly to our puzzle base, plus you can tackle them dynamically and interactively! :smile:

Some awesome collections by my peers:

@Francisa’s Library - These are graded problems sorted by difficulty and board positions; great way to practice the basic skills!
@mark5000’s Exercises for Beginners and Tactics Tutor - the former is more basic, the latter provides good exercise in handling slightly more complicated board positions.
And just for fun, I have a few collections with hard problems: The Book of Pure Pleasures, and The Genius of Akaboshi Intetsu. :wink:

For a list of Go sources outside of OGS, please visit the Tsumego section on our resources page! And feel free to visit Sensei’s Library’s problems and exercises page as well!

There are a whole lot of tsumego books you can choose; the general advice is to pick problems that are practical, solvable, and preferably graded. For example, some collections have very high aesthetic value in their puzzles, but the positions are usually carefully designed with deliberation, which might not happen in real turn-based games; some collections are very difficult in general, and being unable to solve a few problems in a row could possibly damage your spirits (and this is true for me :stuck_out_tongue:). Finally, graded problems will help you check your progress, so that you may see where you are after doing a certain amount of problems, or finishing the book.

And finally, tsumegos always happen in real games! :smiley:

Cheers, xhu98

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Thanks a lot xhu98 :smile: I really love using informatic go resources and in fact I often do that! I was asking about a book just because I cannot always have my computer with me… I’m expecially thinking about my seaside holidays, where I’d like to bring a good tsumego book :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: could you please point me a good title or some adress where I can get some choices? :smiley:

Oh, I think many of the retailers in the Equipment section of the resources page do sell Go books :smile: Plus, Kiseido, Yutopian, Slate & Shell, and probably Yellow Mountain Imports too! :sunny:

Great man! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Fran’s Library in the Puzzles page is actually the first 350 problems from Cho Chikun’s Encyclopedia, still a great resource because Cho’s doesn’t provide an answer key. Here is where you can find the rest of the book (900 problems total) http://tsumego.tasuki.org/ and some more difficult stuff.

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If you’re looking to buy a book, 1001 life and death problems and graded go problems are very popular. If you want tesuji problems, get strong at tesuji is also good. However, I recommend using free resources when you can because their quality isn’t much different from books.