Tsumego
Encyclopedia
is the Japanese
term for a Go problem based on life-and-death. The term likely comes from , as means mating
in Shogi
but has no meaning in Go. Tsumego problems are common in newspaper columns; the usual format is of a position set up on some delimited area of the board, and the instruction reads something like 'Black to play and kill White'.
The form of the problem in fact goes back many hundreds of years; such problems are known in collections found in old Chinese books dating from about the 13th century. They were presumably composed and collected from actual games much earlier. They range from positions quite commonly occurring in games, which every strong player ought to be familiar with, to deliberately difficult puzzles. Some books of the latter type are still used for professional training.
A number of conventions are understood in the problems. Firstly, the task is to kill a group, or to prevent it being killed. There is no specified number of plays (as would be usual in a chess problem
); in fact that makes less sense in go, because a killing or living play once found does not really have specific variations that follow (though there is sometimes a more interesting 'main line'). If part of the board only is shown, as is usually the case, the rest of the board can be assumed to be empty. Escape of the group under threat into an area not shown should not be relevant in a well-composed problem (this is one way in which such problems differ from real games). Seki is life, from the point of view of tsumego; on the other hand achieving ko
for life or death is considered failure, unless the problem actually states this as objective. Other questions that might matter in a game, such as leaving the best situation in terms of ko threats
, or later endgame plays, are ruled out of consideration.
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
term for a Go problem based on life-and-death. The term likely comes from , as means mating
Checkmate
Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...
in Shogi
Shogi
, also known as Japanese chess, is a two-player board game in the same family as Western chess, chaturanga, and Chinese Xiangqi, and is the most popular of a family of chess variants native to Japan...
but has no meaning in Go. Tsumego problems are common in newspaper columns; the usual format is of a position set up on some delimited area of the board, and the instruction reads something like 'Black to play and kill White'.
The form of the problem in fact goes back many hundreds of years; such problems are known in collections found in old Chinese books dating from about the 13th century. They were presumably composed and collected from actual games much earlier. They range from positions quite commonly occurring in games, which every strong player ought to be familiar with, to deliberately difficult puzzles. Some books of the latter type are still used for professional training.
A number of conventions are understood in the problems. Firstly, the task is to kill a group, or to prevent it being killed. There is no specified number of plays (as would be usual in a chess problem
Chess problem
A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by somebody using chess pieces on a chess board, that presents the solver with a particular task to be achieved. For instance, a position might be given with the instruction that White is to move first, and checkmate Black in two...
); in fact that makes less sense in go, because a killing or living play once found does not really have specific variations that follow (though there is sometimes a more interesting 'main line'). If part of the board only is shown, as is usually the case, the rest of the board can be assumed to be empty. Escape of the group under threat into an area not shown should not be relevant in a well-composed problem (this is one way in which such problems differ from real games). Seki is life, from the point of view of tsumego; on the other hand achieving ko
Rules of Go
This is an in-depth discussion of the rules of go.There has been a certain amount of variation in the rules of go over time, and from place to place. This article discusses those sets of rules broadly similar to the ones currently in use in East Asia. Even among these, there is a degree of...
for life or death is considered failure, unless the problem actually states this as objective. Other questions that might matter in a game, such as leaving the best situation in terms of ko threats
Rules of Go
This is an in-depth discussion of the rules of go.There has been a certain amount of variation in the rules of go over time, and from place to place. This article discusses those sets of rules broadly similar to the ones currently in use in East Asia. Even among these, there is a degree of...
, or later endgame plays, are ruled out of consideration.