Go Terms Glossary

Short, plain definitions for terms you'll run into while learning Go. Each one links to the guide that covers it in more depth. New to the game? Start with the rules of Go.

Area scoring: The scoring method this site uses, sometimes called Chinese rules: your score is your stones on the board plus your surrounded empty points, added together. See how scoring works for a full walkthrough.
Atari: A stone or group with exactly one liberty left, one move away from capture. Announcing "atari" is a common courtesy in over-the-board games, but nothing forces the other player to respond. See liberties and capture.
Board (goban): The grid Go is played on. Stones sit on the intersections of the lines, not inside the squares. Common sizes are 9x9, 13x13, and 19x19. See which size to start on.
Capture: Removing a stone or group from the board after every one of its liberties has been filled by the opponent. See how capture works.
Connect: Playing a stone that joins two of your own groups into one, so they share liberties and can only be captured together.
Cut: Playing a stone that keeps two of the opponent's groups from connecting, forcing them to defend both separately.
Dame: A neutral point that borders both players and belongs to neither. Under this site's area scoring, filling a dame point is worth a real point, so it's worth playing out. See filling dame before the count.
Dead stone: A stone or group that has no way to survive and no way to make two eyes, even though nobody has captured it yet. Dead stones are removed before the final count. See life and death.
Empty triangle: Three of your stones in an L shape, with the fourth point of the square left empty. The standard example of bad shape: the three stones share only seven liberties where a straighter arrangement would have eight, so one of them is doing no work. See good shape in Go.
Eye: An empty point completely surrounded by one player's stones. A group with two separate eyes can never be captured. See eyes, explained with diagrams.
False eye: An eye-shaped point where the surrounding diagonal points aren't secure enough, so it can't defend a group on its own the way a true eye can. See true eyes vs. false eyes.
Fuseki: The opening phase of a game, roughly the moves spent claiming corners and sides before contact fighting starts. See the opening, move by move.
Gote: A move that doesn't force a response, so the opponent is free to play anywhere next, the opposite of sente. See sente and gote in the endgame.
Group: Stones of the same color connected up/down/left/right (not diagonally). A group shares its liberties and is captured all at once. See liberties and groups.
Handicap: Extra stones given to a weaker player before the game starts, to keep a game between mismatched players competitive. See how handicap games work.
Hane: A move played diagonally around the end of an opponent's stone or wall, turning the corner rather than blocking straight on. See good shape in Go.
Joseki: A sequence of moves in a corner that both players play, considered locally balanced for both sides: a well-studied local pattern rather than a single move. See joseki for beginners.
Kakari (approach): A move played close to a lone opponent stone in a corner, stopping that corner from settling into territory. Usually answered, and usually the first move of a joseki. See the opening.
Ko: A shape where a single capture could be immediately recaptured, looping forever. Go forbids the immediate recapture to stop the loop. See the ko rule, with diagrams.
Ko threat: A move made elsewhere, dangerous enough that the opponent has to answer it, while you're temporarily blocked from retaking a ko. See how ko threats work.
Komi: A fixed bonus added to White's score at the end of the game, to offset the advantage of Black moving first. This site uses 7.5 points. See why komi is 7.5.
Kyu and dan (ranks): The Go rank ladder. Kyu ranks count down from about 30 kyu, a complete beginner, to 1 kyu, and dan ranks then count up from 1 dan. One rank of difference is worth roughly one handicap stone. See how to get better at Go.
Ladder (shicho): A capture made by putting a stone in atari again and again, driving it diagonally across the board in a staircase. It only works if nothing of the opponent's is already sitting in its path. See ladders and nets.
Liberty: An empty point directly next to a stone (up, down, left, or right). A stone or group with zero liberties is captured. See liberties, explained with diagrams.
Life and death: Whether a group can survive to the end of the game. A group is alive once it has two eyes (or a space that guarantees two eyes); otherwise it's still fighting for its life. See life and death, with diagrams.
Monkey jump: A long slide from a stone on the second line down to the edge, landing three points away, played late in the game to eat into the opponent's territory. Worth around eight points and awkward to cut off. See the endgame in Go.
Net (geta): A capture that traps a stone loosely from a distance instead of chasing it. Slower than a ladder, but it does not depend on what else happens to be sitting on the board. See ladders and nets.
Pass: Skipping your turn instead of playing a stone. Two passes in a row end the game. See when the game ends.
Resign: Ending the game early by conceding, usually once the position is clearly lost rather than playing out every last point. See resigning and how a game ends.
Seki: A standoff where two opposing groups are both alive without two eyes, because neither can attack the other without dying first. Rare, but not a bug. See eyes and seki.
Semeai (capturing race): A fight between two neighbouring groups that both lack two eyes, where whoever fills the other side's liberties first wins and the loser comes off the board. Count both sides' liberties before you start one. See capturing races.
Sente: A move the opponent has to answer, letting you keep the initiative and choose what happens next. The opposite of gote. See sente and gote in the endgame.
Shimari (corner enclosure): A second stone played near your own corner stone, so that the two together make the corner hard to invade. The natural follow-up when the opponent leaves your corner alone. See the opening.
Snapback: A sacrifice of one stone into a shape where capturing it puts the capturing group itself into atari, so you take the whole group back on the next move. See liberties and capture.
Star point (hoshi): One of the small marked dots printed on a Go board (corners, sides, and center on 19x19) that mark commonly used reference points. Purely a visual guide; they carry no special rule. See the opening.
Suicide: Playing a stone that would leave it with zero liberties. Illegal, unless the move captures an opponent group first and gains a liberty that way. See capture and suicide.
Superko: The stricter form of the ko rule: no move may recreate a board position that has already occurred in the game, not only the one from a move ago. This site uses positional superko. See the ko rule.
Tengen: The center point of the board. Rarely a sensible first move on 19x19, but a real opening choice on 9x9, where the center is close to everything. See 9x9 strategy.
Tenuki: Playing away from the local area of the board instead of responding to the opponent's last move, usually because a bigger move exists elsewhere. See sente, gote and tenuki.
Territory: Empty points fully surrounded by one player's stones, counted toward that player's score at the end of the game. See how scoring works.
Tesuji: A clever, often non-obvious move that makes the most of a specific local situation: a sharp tactical shot rather than a routine move.
Yose (endgame): The last phase of a game, once the borders between the two sides are roughly settled and all that is left is deciding exactly where they run. Worth far more points than beginners expect. See the endgame in Go.