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don't take away your own liberties
Path: Mistake · Prev: Cut · Next: ClumsyDoubleContact Path: GiveMeLiberties · Prev: TooClose · Next: ThereIsDamezumariInTheBambooJoint
Difficulty: Beginner
Keywords: Tactics
A common mistake in Go, is taking away your own liberties. Example 1
White has taken territory and Black some influence. It is tempting to reduce White's territory by pushing at a.
However, Black has reduced his own liberties from 6 to 5. As his formation is still open to invasion, reduction or attack, losing a liberty is too high a cost compared to White's cost of one point. Furthermore, this move loses a ko-threat, but that was not the issue here. Example 2
White's stone has 4 liberties.
A vain attempt to cut the bamboo joint: White's stone has 3 liberties. Almost as bad as losing a liberty, is playing but not gaining any liberties.
The exchange White 1 - Black 2 leaves White with three liberties, the same amount as she had before. This is one of the ideas behind hane at the head.
After White 1 here, whatever Black does, she will end up with at least four liberties for her group.
A more complex situation where removing one's own liberties gives a bad result: Removing one's own liberties Example 1 Authors Path: Mistake · Prev: Cut · Next: ClumsyDoubleContact Path: GiveMeLiberties · Prev: TooClose · Next: ThereIsDamezumariInTheBambooJoint This is a copy of the living page "don't take away your own liberties" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |