Empty triangle

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  Difficulty: Beginner   Keywords: Shape, Go term
[Diagram]

Empty triangle

Chinese: 空三角 (kong1 san1 jiao3)
Japanese: 空き三角 (akisankaku)
Korean: 빈삼각 (bin sam gak)

This shape is an empty triangle, empty referring to the point at [circled point].

The empty triangle is bad, generally, being inefficient and prone to shortage of liberties. But there are also good empty triangles (see guzumi).

In contrast, the full triangle, with a White stone at [circled point], is good shape.

[Diagram]

Not an empty triangle

Additional Black stones, such as the legs of a, or b or c, give this shape different efficiency and shortage-of-liberties characteristics, and as such it is no longer called an empty triangle, although it may still be so-called stupid shape (gukei?).

[Diagram]

Diamond

The presence of the BS stones in place mean that this is not an empty triangle either, but rather a diamond or ponnuki with an extra stone at BC, a common shape.


Empty triangle is also sometimes called the devil's shape (onigatachi), because it brings to mind the long nose of one kind of Japanese demon.


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This is a copy of the living page "Empty triangle" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2005 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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