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Five Groups Might Live But The Sixth Will Die
   

Pretty bad news, no? The sixth will die... The fifth might live...

This proverb illustrates that having many groups on the board is dangerous. Intuitively it's easy to understand why that is: five groups need ten eyes to live. Six groups need twelve eyes. Your groups become stronger if you can 'share' the same two eyes to make two groups live. Which is another way of saying that it is a good idea to connect them.

Think twice before you create another (weak) group. The more groups you have on the board, the easier it is for your opponent to set up a leaning attack or splitting attack? between two or three of them.

--Stefan

With the old Chinese rules, there was an actual penalty (often referred to as 'group tax') on each group of the board, in that the first two points (the two required eyes) for each group were not counted as territory. See Ancient Chinese Rules And Philosophy for more. 'Divide and conquer' still holds true in Go today.

MortenPahle



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