![]() StartingPoints Aliases (info) Referenced by
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Suicide
Difficulty: Advanced
Keywords: Tactics, Rules
The term suicide (or self-capture) refers to a move which is played such that the stone that is played has no liberties. Suicide moves are forbidden under Japanese rules and Chinese rules; but some other rulesets, such as Ing rules, New Zealand rules and Tromp-Taylor rules, do allow suicide, at least when it is suicide of more than one stone. A suicide of one stone does not change the position on the board, and therefore may be forbidden or equivalent to passing, depending on the ruleset[1]. Suicide of more than one stone can, however, be a useful move.
The simplest, and best known, situation where suicide can make a difference is as a ko threat. In this position, the black group is alive. However, if White is allowed to play the suicide move of
But sometimes suicide also makes a difference for the outcome of a capturing race. In this diagram, if White is not allowed to play suicide, she is dead. There is no way for White to avoid that: Black first fills up two liberties with
Playing at
If suicide is allowed, White does have a resource in this situation. She can play the suicide move of
After [1] The status of self-capture of a single stone in various rulesets which allow suicide is as follows:
Robert Pauli: Please make it more clear, Andre. After the suicide move the stone you're talking about is gone. So it hardly makes sense to refer to this point in time when talking about missing liberties. My humble suggestion therefore:
The term suicide (or self-capture) refers to a move which is played such that the stone just placed has no liberties, but all opposing stones still have.
Main author:
This is a copy of the living page "Suicide" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |