The Endgame in Go (Yose): How to Finish and Not Give Points Away
The Go endgame, called yose in Japanese, is the part of the game where nothing is being created any more and the boundaries between the two sides are being fixed one point at a time. Beginners lose more games here than they realise, because endgame mistakes do not look like mistakes: nothing dies, nothing gets captured, you just quietly hand over ten points across twenty moves. It is also the most learnable part of Go, because it is mostly counting.
When the endgame starts
There is no bell. The endgame has started when every group on the board is settled, meaning each one either has two eyes or has enough space that both players have stopped worrying about it, and the only open questions are where the borders run.
If you are not sure whether the endgame has started, ask whether any group could still die. If one could, that fight comes first, and life and death matters more right now than any number of boundary points.
What an endgame move is worth
The value of an endgame move is the number of points it changes. Not the number of points it gains for you, the number it changes, which is usually larger, because the same move would have gained your opponent something if they had played it first.
Take the left edge in the diagram above. If White plays there first, White ends up with five points in that column and Black four. If Black plays there first, Black gets six and White three. That is a two-point difference for each player, a four-point swing in total, and by the usual convention the move is described as being worth about two points.
When choosing between two endgame moves, work out each one’s swing, halve it, and play the bigger one. The arithmetic is rough, and rough is enough.
Sente and gote
Two words do more work in the endgame than anything else.
A sente move is one your opponent has to answer. You play it, they respond, and you still have the initiative for your next move, so a sente move is effectively free.
A gote move is one your opponent can ignore. You play it, they play somewhere else, and now it is their turn to take the next big point.
So: play all your sente moves first, then the biggest gote move, and accept that your opponent gets the next one. A three-point sente move beats a five-point gote move almost every time, because the sente move costs you nothing.
One warning saves a lot of points: sente is not permanent. A move that is sente now often stops being sente once the surrounding area changes and your opponent loses nothing by ignoring it. If you are saving one for later, later may never come.
The boundary plays worth knowing
Three shapes cover most of what happens at the edges of a finished board.
The hane and connect
You reach along the first line past the end of your opponent’s wall, they block, and you connect behind. It is the most common endgame sequence in Go.
Normally this ends in gote, because after you connect your opponent is free to play elsewhere. It is still one of the biggest moves left on most finished boards, and there is usually one at every edge.
The reason your opponent blocks rather than ignoring you is worth seeing once.
The monkey jump
If you have a stone on the second line beside your opponent’s wall, you can slide three points along the first line in one move. This is the monkey jump, and your opponent cannot cut it off: every attempt to block runs into a shortage of liberties on the first line.
It is usually quoted as being worth about eight points, which makes it the first endgame move to look for. The exact figure depends on the surroundings, so treat eight as a guide rather than a number to trust to the decimal.
Pushing on the second line
Pushing along the second line under your opponent’s wall transfers one point per exchange, and it is usually sente early on because they have to keep blocking. Two cautions: it stops being sente once they can safely ignore it, and each push hands them a stone’s worth of solid wall.
Dame, and why you fill them here
Dame are neutral points, the leftover gaps on the boundary between two settled groups that belong to neither side.
This matters more here than in a Japanese-rules game. We use area scoring, where your score is your stones plus the empty points you surround, so a stone placed on a dame point adds one to your score. How scoring works has the full count. Under territory scoring dame are worth nothing and get skipped, which is where the habit of passing early comes from.
So: do not pass while dame remain. Take them in turn with your opponent, and expect to get about half of them. Playing inside your own territory is different again. It costs nothing under area scoring, since you gain a stone and lose an empty point, but it is still a wasted turn while dame are sitting there.
When to stop
Pass when no move on the board gains you a point. In practice that means all the boundary plays are finished, all the dame are filled, and the only remaining moves are inside one side’s territory or the other’s. How a Go game ends covers what happens after both players pass, including agreeing which stones are dead.
A simple endgame checklist
Run through this in order each turn once the fighting has stopped.
- Is any group still in danger? If so, that comes first.
- Is there a sente move, something the opponent must answer? Play those first, biggest first.
- Is there a monkey jump available at any edge? It is usually the biggest gote move left.
- What is the biggest remaining gote move? Estimate the swing, halve it, compare.
- Are there dame left? Fill them before you even think about passing.
- Does anything still gain a point? If not, pass.
The endgame rewards patience more than talent. To practise it without a nine-hour game, play a 9x9 game against the computer all the way out instead of resigning or passing early, then count. Two or three of those teach more than reading about yose does, and 9x9 strategy covers what happens before the endgame on that board.
Frequently asked questions
When does the endgame start in Go?
The endgame starts when every group on the board is settled and the only remaining question is where the borders between the two sides run. There is no move number that marks it. A practical test: if no group could still be killed and no large area is still open to both players, you are in the endgame.
What is a monkey jump?
A monkey jump is a slide from a second-line stone to the first line three columns away, a large knight’s move along the edge. It reduces the opponent’s edge territory sharply and cannot be cut off, because any attempt to block runs short of liberties on the first line. It is usually said to be worth about eight points, depending on the position.
What is the difference between sente and gote?
A sente move is one your opponent has to answer, so you keep the initiative and get to choose the next move as well. A gote move is one they can ignore, so playing it hands them the next turn. In the endgame you play your sente moves first, then the biggest gote move, because a sente move is effectively free and a gote move costs you the initiative.