Go terms Totally Explained

Everything about Go Concepts totally explained

Players of the game of Go often use jargon terms to describe situations on the board and surrounding the game. Such technical terms are likely to be encountered in books and articles about Go in English as well as other languages. Many of these terms have been borrowed from Japanese, mostly when no short equivalent English term could be found. This page gives an overview of the most important terms.

Use of Japanese terms

Although Go almost certainly originated in China, the current English and Western technical vocabulary borrows a high proportion of terms from the Japanese language because it was through Japan that Go was introduced to Western culture.
Many of these terms are from a jargon used for technical go writing and to some extent specially developed for go journalism. Some authors of English-language go materials avoid use of Japanese technical terms, and the way they're applied can differ in subtle ways from the original meanings.
A very small number of Korean-language terms have come into use (for example haengma as a way of describing the development of stones ).

The closest English one could use is 'latent potential.' From the Japanese, is the word for taste, and in go refers to the lingering quality that even dead stones will provide possible avenues of subtle play. Though might never be used, it has a bearing on the course of the game. Good is when your groups are strong, and have little or no possibility of being compromised. Bad is where dead stones or weaknesses in one's own formation carry a latent threat of compromising an existing area, should the situation become ripe. is different from a simple defect or weakness in that it can be exploited and/or repaired in more than one way, or at more than one stage of the game, and which way or time is best won't be clear until later; hence the "aftertaste" metaphor.

"" (Chinese: ; Korean: ) is a term used for a situation where a stone or chain of stones has only one liberty, and may be captured on the next move if not given one or more additional liberties. It can be a verb to describe the act of placing a chain under, as well as an adjective to describe the status of a unit, as being "in (the state of) ". Calling out during a game is sometimes done by beginners much like calling out check in chess, but it's considered rude by many players who have advanced beyond the absolute beginner level.
Above is a simple formation with only one stone (the white triangled stone) in danger of being captured. If black plays a, the white piece is immediately captured and removed from the board. White can escape toward the center by playing at a himself, creating a string with three liberties. Below, another white group is in, but playing at b along the side will do no good, since Black can then play c, then capture the whole group.

Board positions

Go board

As the distance of a stone from the edge of the board has important tactical and strategic implications, it's normal to term the corner points of the board (1, 1) points, and count lines in from the edge.

: an intersection traditionally marked with a small dot on the board. These are either
- a (4, 4) point in an empty corner, or
- a (4, 10) or (10, 4) point on one of the sides
: the center of the board, located at (10, 10) on the standard 19×19 go board.
: a (5, 5) point in a corner.
: a (3, 3) point in a corner.
: a (4, 3) or (3, 4) point in a corner.
: a (4, 5) or (5, 4) point in a corner.
: a (6, 4) or (4, 6) point in a corner.
: a (3, 5) or (5, 3) point in a corner.
: a (6, 3) or (3, 6) point in a corner.

Dame (ダメ)

Unfilled neutral points that won't benefit either side. Typically refers to vacant points that lie between two opposing forces, and will eventually be filled without altering the score. Basically, dame points are of no interest, though they must be filled before counting the score under area (Chinese style) scoring. The Japanese rules define a dame as a vacant point that isn't surrounded by live stones of only one color, so the term can also refer to an empty point that's tactically useful as a liberty for a unit.

Gote (後手) and Sente (先手)

A move that leaves the player an overwhelming follow-up move, and thus forces the opponent to respond, is said to have "sente," or "initiative"; the opponent has "gote". In most games, the player who keeps sente most of the time will win. Gote means "succeeding move" (lit: "after hand"), the opposite of sente, meaning "preceding move" (lit: "before hand"). Sente is a term to describe which player has the initiative in the game, and which moves result in taking and holding the initiative. More precisely, as one player attacks, and the other defends in gote, it can be said that they respectively do and don't have the initiative. The situation of having sente is favorable, permitting control of the flow of the game.
   Applying these concepts to a whole sequence is basic to higher strategy. If Black starts a sequence that properly ends in an even number of plays, Black retains sente in doing this. If Black starts a sequence that properly ends after an odd number of plays, Black loses sente and takes gote. Accepting gote should only be in return for some profitable exchange. Correct play in the endgame can consist of playing available sente sequences, and then taking the largest gote sequence on the board. That description is a simplfication, though. A reverse sente play is a special type of gote play, preventing the opponent from making some sente move. The relative value of reverse sente plays depends on the overall position, but one can count it as twice the value of what it would be if purely gote.
   A player has sente if he doesn't currently need to respond to moves made by his opponent. This can be achieved by tenuki (ignoring the opponent), as a kind of gambit. A player can break out of gote, and can gain sente, by choosing to accept some future loss, on the local level, in order to take the initiative to play elsewhere.
   In the case that neither of the players directly respond to each other's moves, the game can become difficult. Both players will have sente on their turn, and the moves they're making are gote. This will likely end in large exchanges, or one player will be shown to have a weaker position, and will have to start answering to avoid heavy damage.

Joseki (定石)

Joseki are established sequences of play which (locally speaking) are considered to give an optimal result to both players. There are thousands of such lines that have been researched and documented.
   Often joseki are played out early in the game and involve dividing the corners. There are also "mid-game joseki", dealing with for example an invasion into a common enclosure or framework.
   Though joseki have some parallel with chess openings, they differ significantly. Chess openings structure the whole board while joseki deal only with a local position. Therefore the choice of which joseki (of many possible) to play in any given situation should be based on an assessment of the global position. This includes considerations of the direction of play, current balance of territory and influence, and one's own game strategy.
   It is also quite possible to deviate from joseki and obtain a good result if the surrounding position allows. In other words, joseki are sensitive to the context in which they're played.

Kiai (気合い)

In the context of Go, kiai often translates as "fighting spirit", for example aggressiveness or initiative, but not unthinking greed. Kiai means keeping sente, that isn't letting the opponent have his or her way. A sensei might say, "You play too passively - put some kiai in your moves!” A passive player may follow an opponent around the board responding to each move in turn. Kiai moves are the opposite of passive or submissive and a player showing kiai will dictate the flow of play. Kiai moves can catch an opponent off-balance and turn the game around. Examples of kiai moves include snatching sente away from the opponent; defending with a move that also counter-attacks; or answering a kikashi (forcing move) in an unexpected way. Kiai is also a term used in Japanese martial arts, usually as a name for a loud yell accompanying an attack. Obviously this is outwardly more restrained in the context of a board game, but it's intended to be in the same spirit.

Kikashi (利かし)

Literally meaning 'an enlivenment', Kikashi is a forcing move, usually one made outside the primary flow of play. Unlike sente, though, a move is kikashi when it yields a high efficiency in play by forcing the opponent to abandon certain courses of action. A kikashi stone can generally be sacrificed but meanwhile it still might confer an advantage, for example act as a ladder breaker or destroy the opponent's potential eyeshape, while the answering move has no value at all.
Moves can be kikashi, or not, depending on whether they're answered with appropriate sophistication or not. If the answering move strengthens the position, then the play isn't kikashi but aji keshi (ruining one's own potential).

Komi (コミ)

Komi is a bonus in score given to white as compensation for going second. There is no agreement on what Komi ought to be, but is commonly in the range of 4.5 to 7.5 points. Komi almost always includes a half point for breaking ties.

Korigatachi (凝り形)

The term korigatachi is often translated as 'over-concentrated', but more literally is 'frozen shape'. If a player uses his stones in an inefficient way, the result will be korigatachi. Knowing something about this problem should tell you how to avoid it. Placing stones too close together is a fundamental mistake, rather than safe play.

Liberty

A vacant point that's immediately adjacent to a stone either directly up, down, left or right from it, or connected through a continuous string of same-colored stones to such a point. A stone, chain or group must always have at least one liberty to survive and a group should usually have at least two separate guaranteed internal liberties (eyes) to be considered alive. If a group is surrounded, having at least two eyes ensures that it can't be captured by the opponent if correctly defended. Some living groups can't be captured at all, and need no defense even if attacked.

Miai (見合い)

Miai in go are, in the simplest terms, a pair of vacant points on the board that are equivalent in terms of value. For example, if Black plays at A, White can play at B and suffer no disadvantage from the exchange.
This occurs often. With respect to a group's development or survival, pairs of points are frequently seen, such that if one player occupies one of them, his opponent will occupy the other. Miai can be seen in the fuseki stage on a large scale, or in a simple life and death problem, such as a straight four-space eye. This shape is alive because of its two central points a and b: if White plays b, Black can answer with a and vice versa.

Monkey jump

A particular move, usually used in the end-game, which can reduce one's opponent's territory significantly. A monkey jump can be played when the attacker has a strong stone on the second line and the defender has no nearby stones on the first or second line guarding his hoped-for territory. The attacker places a stone on the first line three spaces into the defender's territory from the strong stone. Due to the special properties of the edge of the board, the defender can not usually cut off the stone.

Moyo (模様)

A framework for potential territory which usually consists of unconnected stones with some distance between them. The early game usually consists of competing for moyo by attempting to expand one's own and/or invade or reduce one's opponent's. This term is often translated as "framework" or "potential".

Sabaki (捌き)

Development of a flexible, efficient position that's difficult for the opponent to attack, often by means of contact plays and sacrifice tactics.

Seki (セキ)

A seki.

Seki is a Japanese term used to describe an impasse that can't be resolved into simple life-and-death. For example, a capturing race may end in a position in which neither player can capture the other. There are numerous types of seki position that can arise, characterized as cases in which neither player adds a play to groups that don't have two eyes. The area remains untouched; at the end all groups involved are deemed alive, but no territory is scored. (This is under the Japanese rules.)
In the figure, neither White nor Black can play on the points marked a. White would put himself in atari and be captured immediately. Black would be captured as well, leaving a shape (four in line) where White can always make two eyes.

Shape

Shape is the configuration of stones in terms of their flexibility and efficiency at staying connected, forming eyes, and maintaining liberties. Stones are said to have good shape if they're efficient and flexible, or bad shape if they're inefficient. Classic examples of good shape are the ponnuki (four stones in a diamond created by capturing an enemy stone) and the bamboo joint (a 2x3 pattern of two stones, two spaces and two more stones). Examples of bad shape are the empty triangle (three adjacent stones forming an 'L') and the dango (large clump of stones not containing any eyes). Joseki is in large part the study of forming good shape with your stones.

Thickness

Black is better.

Thickness is a literal translation of the Japanese word and connotes the position of power and impregnability conferred by the thickness of medieval castles' stone walls. A group is thick when it has developed beyond the level of stability in its local area without accruing significant weaknesses, and consequently projects power at a distance, especially over vacant or unsettled areas of the board. Such positions have a profound influence on the flow of the game. In the diagram, though white has about 10 points of territory in the corner, black can expect the power projected outward by his thick position to more than make up for this. Note that his result wouldn't be as good if white had a settled position in the direction black's influence is facing.

Yosu-miru

A probe. A yosu-miru move is, in some sense, a sacrifice of a stone, but is designed to yield a very sophisticated kind of information about a developing group and how best to attack it, based on its response. Yosu-miru draws on other concepts such as kikashi, aji, and korigatachi.
様子(yōsu) means situation or the state of things, and 見る(miru) is "to see", thus "yōsu o miru", to "see how things stand". In Japanese this expression is usually used to say that it's better to wait and see before taking an action (for example "shibaraku yōsu o miru beki da", it's better to wait and see for a little while). It isn't a single word or a set phrase except in Western Go literature, and "probe" is the preferred word, being self-explanatory and actually used by the speakers of its originating language.

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