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Tsumego: Go Life-and-Death Puzzles That Build Reading Skill

⏱ Read ~4 min · Updated July 2026 · Part of: Learn Go

Tsumego (詰棋, also called life-and-death problems or 死活題) are the puzzles serious Go players solve daily. Each one asks a single sharp question: can this group make two eyes and live — or can it be killed?

English中文Plain meaning
tsumego詰棋／死活題life-and-death puzzle
life and death死活can a group make two eyes?
two eyes兩眼the condition for living
reading推算seeing moves ahead in your head

1. What a tsumego is

You're given a local position and a goal: Black to kill, or White to live. There's one correct first move, and the solution usually requires reading several moves deep, because the obvious move often fails.

🧩 Analogy: a tsumego is a chess "mate in 3" problem, but for Go's life-and-death. Compact, forced, and the answer is provable.

2. Why players solve them daily

Every Go skill — defense, attack, knowing when a group is safe — rests on one ability: reading a local fight several moves deep. Tsumego train exactly that, in isolation, with no time pressure. Strong players do them every day; it's the single most reliable way to improve.

🎯 The skill transfers everywhere. Once you can read "can this group live?" you can read captures, ladders, and races too.

3. Life, death, and two eyes

The core of tsumego is the two-eye rule: a group with two eyes can never be captured, so it's alive. A tsumego asks you to either build those eyes or deny them. Learn the common eye-stealing shapes (the "vital point") and many puzzles solve themselves.

4. How brainGO distills tsumego

Full tsumego can be hard. brainGO starts at the entry level: 4×4 capture puzzles, which are tsumego stripped to the killing half — find the move that removes the enemy's last liberty. Because the board is tiny, every puzzle is solvable by an exact engine, so the "right answer" is provably correct. It's the on-ramp to harder life-and-death later.

5. How to solve them well

  1. Read before you place. Don't guess — trace the main line in your head.
  2. Find the vital point. The key move is usually the one both sides want.
  3. Check the wrong answers. If your move fails, understand why — that's where the learning is.

Try one

The fastest way to understand tsumego is to solve one and feel the click.

👉 Play brainGO — your first capture puzzle

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