Tsumego Hero
  • Easy Life

    Life and death is an important part of Go. If you can keep your groups alive, or are able to kill those of your opponent, it will make a large difference to your game. When a group of stones is mostly surrounded and has no options to connect with friendly stones elsewhere, the status of the group is either alive, dead or unsettled. A group of stones is said to be alive if it cannot be captured, even if the opponent is allowed to move first. Conversely, a group of stones is said to be dead if it cannot avoid capture, even if the owner of the group is allowed the first move. Otherwise, the group is said to be unsettled: the defending player can make it alive or the opponent can kill it, depending on who gets to play first.

    This collection is designed to give the reader a first challenge of handling unsettled groups and bring them into a stable state. It starts with 200 basic tsumego problems that can be brought to life with the correct moves. This can be accomplished by creating two eyes or seki.

    200 Problems

    Difficulty: 2