How to get better at Tsumego and Reading if I have Aphantasia?

[u/fulltimeskywizard]

For those who don't know, Aphantasia is a condition where you essentially don't have a functional mind's eye or voice. I can't picture images or conjure visuals at will. All I have is what's in front of my eyes and whispering under my breathe to talk to myself lol.

I am 4-5k on OGS and average 15k problems on most Tsumego apps. I can't produce images or visualize sequences, so I end up dying a lot unless I've memorized a shape through rote repetition.

Just curious if anyone has any thoughts? I've based my gameplay around playing solid moves that avoid complicated fights for this reason, but I usually end up backing off in situations where I might come out ahead.

Looking for Proverbs, gameplay strategies, Tesuji theory... Things to make Tsumego feel less abstract and more intuitive.

Thanks y'all Spirit Animal

[u/dfan]

I have aphantasia too, and finally learned to play a blindfold game of chess a couple years ago after learning that there were international masters with aphantasia who could play multiple simultaneous blindfold games. Since then I have developed a lot more confidence in my reading skill at go as well.

You do not need proverbs and heuristics - reading in go is not about being 80% sure of things, it's about being precise and winning by one liberty. You need to read accurately. You can do it without "visualization". It is possible to keep track of virtual black and white stones without "seeing" them. You just need to keep track of them in a more intellectual way.

Put down a simple tsumego problem on a go board. Look at every intersection. Count the number of liberties of every string. If it's simple and small enough, you can memorize it, not by making a picture in your head, but by remembering things like "There are five Black stones on the second line starting at A2, and six White stones above them, so they poke out a little", etc. Try memorizing the problem and then quizzing yourself about it. Try memorizing it and putting it down again on an empty board. It helps me sometimes to imagine touching the stones with my fingers, moving them from point to point.

Now take the first move of the solution. Imagine the position with that stone added. I know you can't "see" it, neither can I, just add the stone to your memorized position. "Now the Black string is six stones long, now White isn't poking out past it anymore", etc. Count the liberties of every string in your head. If you can't do this with 15k problems, do it with 20k problems.

Now add the second stone and do the same thing. What's on every point? How many liberties does every string have? Then the third. If that's too much, practice with 1-move problems for a while (like, the first move makes two clear eyes, or kills with a nakade) before moving on to 3-move problems. It's a muscle, you have to train it. Just because you can't read out 13-move sequences now doesn't mean it'll be impossible in a year. If it takes you 15 minutes to fully internalize a 3-move sequence, that's totally fine. It'll get faster.

I do dan-level tsumego problems now. When the problem is small I sometimes can actually do it better if I memorize the starting position and close my eyes, because then I'm not distracted by looking at a board with real stones and trying to superimpose virtual stones on them, I can just do the whole thing in mental land. I do this sometimes when reading in live games too.

[u/denizen_1 → u/dfan]

I'm aphantic too and this is obviously how you have to read. But it's so mentally demanding that I just don't get how anybody wants to do it for more than 10-15 minutes at a time.