Small Life

Small life describes a living group that's entirely sealed in, as opposed to living with a decent amount of territory or weakening the opponent's surrounding structure. This is usually a bad thing: in some joseki, it's worth taking gote in order to avoid being sealed in; and if an invasion ends with small life, often the opponent gains more in influence than they lose from being invaded.

Joseki  

In this modern ^[1] 3-3 invasion pattern, White adds a stone on the second line with . If she omitted that ...

[1] bugcat: What's "modern" about ? The modern (or hypermodern) move would be the continuation with a second push, rather than making a hane exchange. Both the "new" and "old" 3-3 variations after stem from .

Not Joseki  

... then Black's turn would force White into small life.

anonymous White is not alive...

xela: It took me a few minutes, but yes, the killing sequence is black a - white b -- black c -- white d -- black e. Can someone replace this with a better example? Right now, I'm struggling to think of something that's clear-cut and won't provoke arguments...

unkx80: How about Joseki-related life-and-death example 4?