Capture

  Difficulty: Introductory   Keywords: Tactics

Chinese: 吃 (chi1)
Japaneese:
Korean:

See

Captured stones that are taken off are called prisoners or captives. Those that are apparently captured are usually called dead. You may think this is in a way contradictory; and you would be right [1]. See also killing, dead stones, legal position.

Different special tactical situations:

(as well as ko, snapback).

Capture go is a tutorial variant, using only the rule of capture.


[1] For the curiosity.

In 1978, Winfried Dörholt, later president of the German Go Federation, published the introductory go book Das japanische Brettspiel Go, in which the terms captured and killed are in fact used switched.

For instance (p. 20):

Sobald ein Stein keine Freiheit mehr hat, ist er getötet und muß vom Brett genommen werden. [...] Die Abb. 11 zeigt gefangene Steine. S hat die w Steine vollkommen eingeschlossen, sie können nicht entkommen [...]. Die w Steine haben aber noch innerhalb der s Umklammerung 1 Freiheit behalten; sie sind also noch nicht tot [...].

That's

As soon a stone has no more liberty, it is killed and has to be taken off the board [...]. Dia. 11 shows captured stones. B completely enclosed the w stones, they can not escape [...]. But the w stones still kept 1 liberty inside the b enclosure; they are therefore not yet dead [...].

Fits nice with "can't escape", but not so good to "not alive". Wonder why he did it. Can't remember that this was the usage in Germany (or anywhere else), and his occasional slips don't suggest: p. 12, "fünf Punkte Komi, das sind fünf gefangene Steine im voraus" ("five points komi, that's five captured stones in advance"), or p. 95, "Nach W 138 sind die s Steine immer noch tot" ("After W 138 the b stones are still dead").

-- Robert Pauli


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