Tsumego: 15,000 Go puzzles

Tsumego are life-and-death problems — the pushups of Go. Twenty minutes of them a day will make you stronger faster than any number of games.

Why puzzles, and not just more games

A game of Go gives you maybe three or four genuinely difficult reading moments. A puzzle set gives you thirty in the same time, each with a known correct answer. That is why every serious player, from 20 kyu to professional, does tsumego.

Reading is the skill of seeing a sequence — "I play here, he must answer there, then I connect" — accurately, before touching the board. It is trainable, and puzzles are the training.

How to actually solve them

1. Read it out fully in your head first. Do not tap around to see what happens. The moment you start guessing, you stop training.
2. Find the opponent's best answer, not the one that makes your idea work. Most failed solutions collapse because you assumed a weak reply.
3. One minute rule. If nothing comes in about a minute, the problem is above your level. Drop a level — easy problems solved cleanly build more strength than hard ones half-solved.
4. Repeat sets. Re-solving the same 100 problems until they are instant is a classic method. Pattern recognition is the goal.

The vital point

Most life-and-death problems come down to one intersection — the vital point. Whoever plays it first usually wins the fight. A few shapes worth memorising early:

• Straight three: dead if the opponent plays the middle first, alive if you do.
• Bent four in the corner: famously dead under most rulesets — worth learning the reason.
• The "eye-stealing" tesuji: a placement inside enemy shape that prevents a second eye.
• Throw-in: sacrificing one stone to reduce a group's eye space.

The puzzle path in TseGo

15,000 problems arranged as a path, from 25 kyu beginner shapes up to dan-level problems, across 9×9, 13×13 and 19×19 positions. Categories cover life & death, capture, tactics (tesuji) and endgame.

Hints escalate in three steps instead of just showing the answer: first the zone, then a tighter zone, then the exact point. That way you get unstuck without losing the training value.

All of it works offline and free, with no account.

A realistic study routine

Thirty-five minutes a day. That is the whole method — see the rules page if you are just starting, and the AI page for how to get a strong opponent that fits your level.