One Thousand and One Life-and-Death Problems

iv Preface

v Some Important Terms and Concepts

001Part One

One-move problems - Black to live

053Part Two

One-move problems - Black to kill

105Part Three

Three-move problems - Black to live

149Part Four

Three-move problems - Black to kill

173Part Five

Five-move problems - Black to live

195Part Six

Five-move problems - Black to kill

Along with playing games, practice is essential for mastering go technique; namely, practice in analyzing positions and reading out all their variations. However, the practice players get from their games is limited, whereas problem books can give the amateur go player a vast variety of positions that might occur in their games. Practice also keeps the mind sharp and in top form. This is the reason professionals are always solving problems and often spend considerably time composing them.

Practice must also include repetition if it is to be effective. If you have to find the same kind of tesuji in similar patterns over and over again, spotting that tesuji in a problem or in an actual game will become second nature.

It is the purpose of this book to provide a vast number and a large variety of life and death problems for the inexperienced player. The problems here are not hard; they range from very easy to moderately difficult. A dan player should be able to solve them within a minute, sometimes on sight, but it may take a bit longer for kyu-level players.

Even if you have just learned the rules and played only a few games, you can still benefit from studying these problems. It may take you longer to work through them, but in the end you will have mastered the basic techniques of the life and death of stones.

In order to include so many problems in a limited number of pages, the explanations are minimal. The reader should make the effort to verify that the answer to each problem is indeed the best and most profitable move and to prove to himself that any other move fails to achieve the stated objective. This effort is also part of the practice that these problems provide. This is not an easy task; it requires mental discipline. But doing it will not only improve your go, it will also improve your mind.

How to use this book

In all problems, Black must either live unconditionally or kill White unconditionally. That is, an answer that leads to a ko is a failure unless Black can live or kill by creating a double ko. If Black can live in a seki, it is a success. If White lives in a seki, it is a failure for Black. Occasionally, there may be more than one correct answer. You are to choose the least complicated answer or the answer that gains the most points. You should verify that the answer to each problem is indeed the best move and prove that any other move fails to achieve the stated objective.

Richard Bozulich February 2002, preface