Shape (Go) - Bad Shapes

Bad Shapes

On the top left corner is a black Dumpling that will be dead shortly. On the top right is a white Empty Triangle - if white had played at a instead of white 1, the stones would not be as threatened as they are currently. On the bottom left is a ladder shape for black (black had just played at black 2). Black will win this ladder battle due to the triangled stone at n-11, but if the n-11 piece did not exist, then white would inevitably win when the regular pattern of play extended to the edge of the board.
  • The Empty triangle (空き三角, Akisankaku?) is an undesirable formation of three stones that inefficiently adds liberties and creates a weak group.
  • The Ladder (シチョウ, Shichou?) is not inherently a bad shape, but the inability to recognize when one is trapped in a ladder shape that cannot be won can be fatal.
  • The Dumpling (団子, Dango?) is a shape where a group of stones has been forced into an inefficient lump with few liberties, no eyes and limited ability to counterattack.

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Famous quotes containing the words bad and/or shapes:

    When a man gets his money in bad ways, when he sees the better course and takes the worse, then the devil’s in his heart, and that fixes him.
    Dan Totheroh (1895–1976)

    The chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts; and these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chess-board, express their beauty abstractly, like a poem.... I have come to the personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.
    Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968)