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Dead Stones
  Difficulty: Beginner   Keywords: Go term

Dead stones are stones which don't have the slightest chance of escaping from enemy territory. It is assumed by both players that any more moves involving the stones will be futile, and they are removed at the end of the game.

[Diagram]
Diag.: Black's been cornered

In this invented example, the black stones are dead. If Black puts down a stone at the marked position, he is committing suicide for that area, and all White needs to do is put down a stone at the marked position to get rid of the black stones. Thus, the stones may be freely forgotten about.

See also: dead.



Alex Weldon: I wouldn't go so far as to say that dead stones can be forgotten about. In that example, they certainly can, but in general, dead stones often have aji. Sometimes they even come back from the dead.


Tristan Jones I'd like to proffer the following proverb of mine: "Stones are never truly dead until they're removed from the board".

As Alex pointed out above, even the deadest-seeming stones can still affect the progress of a game (aji). Only when they're completely captured does that effect cease.



This is a copy of the living page "Dead Stones" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.