Go for beginners: liberties, atari and capturing stones
A practical way to read connected stones, identify the last liberty and avoid confusing a temporary escape with life.
On this page
What counts as a liberty?
A liberty is an empty intersection immediately above, below, left or right of a stone or connected group. Diagonals do not count. Stones of the same colour touching horizontally or vertically form one group and share liberties. If two stones both touch the same empty point, count that point once, not twice. A reliable habit is to trace the whole connected group first, mark every adjacent empty intersection, and remove duplicates. This prevents a common error: counting only around the stone you plan to play instead of around the group it joins.
Atari in a concrete example
Use our top-to-bottom board coordinates. Put one white stone at C3, with black stones at B3, D3 and C2; leave C4 empty. The white stone has exactly one liberty, C4, and is in atari. If Black plays C4, the white stone loses its final liberty and is removed. If White moves first and plays C4, the two white stones connect. Their resulting liberties depend on the other neighbours of C4, so count again rather than assuming that any extension saves the group. Our capture and escape exercises let you compare these two decisions on a small board.
Try the matching board lesson, then return to your reading.
Open the practice boardWhy capture is checked before suicide
A point surrounded by opposing stones may still be playable if the move captures those stones and creates liberties. Read the position in order: place the stone, remove neighbouring enemy groups that now have no liberties, then check the played group’s liberties. Our practice boards reject a move that still leaves the played group without liberties. They also reject placements that recreate an earlier board shape under positional superko. These are the rules used here; a different tournament ruleset can handle repetition or suicide differently. A pass changes the turn without placing a stone.
What should you practise after your first capture?
Alternate between capturing a group and saving one in atari. Before opening the reference, write down the group you are studying and the empty points it touches. After playing, count those points again and compare the outcome with your prediction. Two liberties are more than one, but do not prove that a group is alive; nearby threats and future play still matter. In a full game, two consecutive passes lead to review on this site. Both players agree dead groups before area counting, and can resume play if they disagree. First learn to recognise local liberties; scoring and life-and-death study are the next stages.
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