Shortage of liberties
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Introduction
Shortage of liberties is an acute lack of liberties. The player suffering from shortage of liberties is unable to achieve a desired objective because to achieve that objective, he will eventually need to play some move that is self-atari or suicide.
Example
![[Diagram]](../../diagrams/28/0da49136bdd5d5c0d32daf040b558da9.png)
Unable to make two eyes
As a first example, Black would like to play a here to make two eyes, but his string of stones would then be in atari, his only liberty being
Therefore after Black plays at a White can capture his whole string by playing at
.
![[Diagram]](../../diagrams/41/de22d120d10f03bd64fa604516d1bc98.png)
Able to make two eyes
If the White stone , for example, were not there as in this diagram, Black can play
( a in the previous diagram) and now Black is not in atari, Black has two liberties (
and
) and Black can therefore not be captured.
If White plays later at
, Black is in atari but can capture at
, creating two eyes and he is therefore alive (But be aware, this is only the case as long as the other Black stones don't get captured)
In both situations, the eyeshape is the same, but the shortage of liberties changes the status.
Therefore, don't take away your own liberties without a good reason.
Shortage of liberties and damezumari
The phrase shortage of liberties is the standard translation in English literature for damezumari. Because the English liberty has a different range of meanings than the Japanese dame, the phrase can easily be (mis)used for any situation where there is a low number of liberties. Usually, ...
- When a stone has only one liberty, it is said to be in atari.
- When a group has few liberties, it can be called short of liberties but it is simpler to say that it has not enough liberties.
- In a race to capture, the losing side may have not enough liberties, but because that is a given, it is not put in those terms. Of course, a shortage of liberties may be an aspect of a race to capture.
So, there must be a certain objective which superficially, shapewise, normally would be possible but in this particular case is not, due to the shortage of liberties. Even then, not all situations where one is short of liberties for a certain objective, would be called damezumari.
More nuances at Shortage of liberties / Discussion
More examples
Here, White would normally be able to play atari at a but due to the special properties of the corner, in particular the low number of liberties there, he cannot play a and must play an approach move at b first.
The connect and die is another example of shortage of liberties. It is more relevant to endgame tactics, rather than to life and death.
This one is different from the rest because the move is suicide rather than self-atari. See oshi-tsubushi.
Applications
Shortage of liberties is the source of many basic tactics.
- snapback
- oiotoshi (this is very common)
- crane's nest tesuji (which is just a special case of oiotoshi)
- shunt
- Ladder
- seki
- approach move
- inability to play oshitsubushi
- damezumari examples
- double damezumari
- double snapback
See also
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