Life and Death

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Life and Death

Gaining a strong understanding of life and death is absolutely fundamental to developing your skill as a go player, and as with all learned skills, there is no substitute for practice. There are literally thousands of life and death puzzles out there to be attempted, and doing so will give your ability to read shapes a huge boost. A great place to start is www.goproblems.com, with a huge repository of puzzles at all difficulty levels.

White kills the black group!

What is "Life and Death"

To begin with, you will find your groups of stones being inexplicably killed by stronger players without it being obvious why they are so weak. To understand this, you will need to gain a good understanding of life and death. A group is considered to be alive when there is no invasion that the opponent can do that can kill the group. A group is considered dead when it cannot make two eyes, and therefore will eventually be killed by the opponent.

False Eyes

The biggest problem beginners face is how to differentiate between a real eye and a false eye. A false eye is normally caused by a lack of connection between some of the stones in a group. In the following example, depending on whose turn it is to move, the entire group's life or death hangs in the balance:

One real eye (O) One false eye (X)

Black to move and black lives

White to move and black dies

If black gets to move first, the false eye is made real as the single stone above it connects to the rest of the group. If white moves first, the connection is broken, and the only way to connect to the rest of the group is by filling in the hole, leaving only one eye for the entire group. White can then play in the remaining eye to capture the group.

The "throw-in"

A common technique used to kill eyes is called a throw-in, where a stone is sacrificed to force a potential eye into a false eye. In the following diagrams, the first example shows black reacting to block white's over-extension. In doing so, white is given the chance to live. However, in the second example, by using a throw-in, black guarantees the death of the white stones as it ensures that one of the two holes becomes a false eye:

White stretches too far

1. Black blocks and white lives

2a. Black sacrifices with a throw-in

2b. White kills but the eye is false

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