Ladders & nets
The ladder. You're Black. Keep tapping the empty point just to the left of the white stone. It runs, but stays in atari the whole way down — until it hits the bottom edge and you capture the lot.
A lone stone you've put in atarican try to run by extending to its last liberty. If every time it runs you can put it straight back in atari, you're running a ladder — and a ladder ends at the edge of the board, where the runner finally has nowhere to go.
- The runner gains a stone each step, but never more than one liberty — so it stays caught.
- Good players read a ladder out before playing it: if it works, the running stones are just dead weight.
- Never start a ladder that doesn't work — you hand your opponent a wall of free moves.
The ladder breaker.Same chase — but this time there's a white stone waiting in the path. Run the ladder into it and watch it fall apart.
A single friendly stone sitting anywhere along the ladder's path is a ladder breaker. When the running stones reach it they connect, suddenly have room to breathe, and escape — and now your chasing stones are the weak ones.
This is why a stone played far away can completely change a fight: it might secretly break a ladder on the other side of the board.
The net (geta).Tap the white stone: it still has two liberties, so it's not in atari — yet the single black stone on the diagonal has it trapped.
Sometimes a ladder doesn't work, but you can still catch a stone in a net— a looser cage played a diagonal step away. The white stone here isn't in atari, but try to picture it running:
- Run one way and it walks straight into a ladder.
- Run the other way and it's captured just the same.
- The net stone covers both escapes at once — no chase required.
Ladders and nets are how you punish a stone that cuts your groups apart. Next: the two ideas that decide whether a whole group lives — eyes.