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Referenced by
Liberty
BewareOfShortageO...
BambooJoint
BambooJointShapeD...
DonTTryToCutABamb...
LibertyDiscussion
DamezumariDiscussion

 

The bamboo joint is short of liberties
Path: GiveMeLiberties   · Prev: DonTTakeAwayYourOwnLiberties   · Next: FiveLibertiesForTacticalStability
Path: GoProverbs   · Prev: NeverIgnoreAShoulderHit   · Next: NetsAreBetterThanLadders

  Difficulty: Beginner   Keywords: Tactics, Proverb

The bamboo joint is an effective shape, that cannot directly be cut. But because of its compactness and the shared liberties of the four stones, there are only 10 liberties in total, for an isolated bamboo joint.

To maintain a connection against a push involves losing two liberties in gote. (Don't take away your own liberties?) This implies that bamboo joints can be attacked using shortage of liberties: for example by setting up a connect and die.


Example 1

[Diagram]
Example 1

Black to win the capturing race.


[Diagram]
Example 1 solution

The hane at B1 threatens a connection, followed by the atari at B3.



This exploits the shortage of liberties in the bamboo joint, and White is unable to play at a.

[Diagram]
White moves first

(Sebastian:) Does this prove that the bamboo joint is as strong as the linear joint (or whatever it's called), because whoever moves first wins?



DJ: Mmh... I'm afraid I do not quite understand your question.
For what concerns this particular topic, a bamboo joint is as strong as the liberties it has, taking into account its inherent possibility of damezumari - see the examples above and below.
Therefore it is obvious that if the bamboo joint has the same number of liberties of the group it is involved in a semeai with, whoever starts first wins...

(Sebastian:) Yes, you did understand and answer my question. It just wasn't obvious to me that they had the same number of liberties.


Example 2

Scartol: Bamboo joints are not invincible, as I found out. I played WC and felt incredibly proud of myself for breaking through to my formerly dead group. Still lost the game, but playing the tesuji felt so good.

[Diagram]
Breaking bamboo


Path: GiveMeLiberties   · Prev: DonTTakeAwayYourOwnLiberties   · Next: FiveLibertiesForTacticalStability
Path: GoProverbs   · Prev: NeverIgnoreAShoulderHit   · Next: NetsAreBetterThanLadders

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