Reading Ladders
Toshiro Kageyama’s “Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go” is a popular book – in part because Kageyama doesn’t mince words when it comes to denouncing mental laziness.
In the first chapter Kageyama describes a very effective exercise for learning reading ladders.
Kageyama asks whether the white stone in the upper right is trapped or whether it can escape. Because there are white and black stones in the lower left, this question cannot be answered without reading the ladder through to the end.
For anyone who has trouble doing this, he suggests shortening the length of the ladder by moving the stones in the bottom left diagonally so that they move closer to the ladder’s origin (see image below, Slide 2).
Then you read: White, black, white, black, white, etc. (see Dia. 3). Once you can do that, move the stones a little further to the lower left. Repeat this exercise several times a day until you can do it. Then change the arrangement of the stones in the lower left corner to create a new exercise.
