Fighting Liberty

  Difficulty: Beginner   Keywords: Life & Death, Tactics, Theory

Fighting Liberties are those that are defined for a particular type of semeais and a particular considered semeai to allow for a fast determination of its outcome.

Example: In a Hunter Type 3 fight where the favourite has 1 eye liberty and 1 inside liberty and the underdog has 1 inside liberty, the favourite has 2 fighting liberties while the underdog has 0 fighting liberties.


tderz: I find the definition way too complicated and narrowed ("defined for a particular type of semeais and a particular considered semeai ").

I propose:
Fighting Liberties are those liberties of groups which are actually needed to remove that group from the board.


RobertJasiek: You should define "capture". I use "removal" as the state of zero physical liberties and "capture" as the strategic possibility independently of the starting player to achieve removal.

Of course, you can redefine "fighting liberties" however you like, but please note that I use that term in the sense in that I have introduced it. Since you want to use it differently, now we need to distinguish the two usages by jasiek-fighting-liberties and tderz-fighting-liberties. On the other hand, it would be easier for everybody if instead you used a new term for your usage: "removal liberties" := difference of numbers of board plays of attacker (moving first) and defender to achieve removal if both play perfectly for the purpose of this definition.

tderz: good suggestion, Robert!
I hope the changed version fits and suits your definition.

RobertJasiek: It does not. You should read Chapter 1 of Hunter's book carefully. Then you will notice that hunter-jasiek-fighting-liberties do not conform to your definition. Or look at my example above: The underdog has 0 hunter-jasiek-fighting-liberties but 1 tderz-fighting-liberties.

tderz: I will grab the book at home. Thanks. I still remember the mental pain of differing between "underdog" and "favourite" in some types, then assigning different "liberties" (0/1; don't pin me now on which ones) to each of them.
What is there first, the distinction underdog/favourite or their liberties? (Chicken/egg question) By mentioning underdog/favourite you seem to want to teach me that the number of the fighting liberties in a semeai depend on the other group as well. That is inherent to semeais. I agree with you that the definition must be crisp & clear and I had my own mnemonic formula (which sometimes differs by 1). We will soon move this stuff to discussion and unambiguously clarify this page here.


Therewith Fighting Liberties can differ largely from the dame, the directly countable physical liberties of a group, if seen in isolation).

Fighting Liberties can be smaller, equal or bigger than the visible dame.
Certain configurations reduce the fighting liberties (if you want to save the whole group):

  • bamboo
  • compromised kosumi
  • necessary approach moves

others increase them:

  • big eyes (> 3-nakade)
    • decreased again by
      • cutting points
      • corner particularities
[Diagram]

Fighting Liberties modifier

[Diagram]

Fighting Liberties modifier


This is a copy of the living page "Fighting Liberty" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2007 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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