Learn to play Go already

| Shape (WARNING, PAGE VERY MUCH UNDER CONSTRUCTION AND CONFUSING)

Now even your stones need to be in shape

Okay, ladders. They are the bread and butter of every serious go player. They are everywhere! The idea is simple, but training your mind to seeing them everywhere takes time. But seriously, understand ladders or go home. It's the difference between killing and being killed.

Any stronger player minds the shape of his groups. By shape we understand the formations a group of your stones has and the relation between them.

A good shape should do some of the following:

Maintain a connection (because it is always easier to have to take care of one group instead of two)

Be efficient (you want the best possible effect with the least possible ammount of moves)

Create Eye potential (so you can live easily)

Maximize Liberties (so you can win capture races)

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Ladder is a situation where a stone (or group) can never get more than one new liberty. Meaning your opponent can keep atariing it until it hits a wall or ranother stone. And that's it. But I can't stress enough how improtant the ladders are. You have to see a ladder before it comes to it. And misreading a ladder usually means something will die.

If you wanna practice ladders just set up the starting shape on a board. And then take handfull of stones and throw them softly in the direction of the ladder. Then try and read out whether the ladder works or not before playing it out.

Actually, let me get back to this one later

EZ , I got this, what's next?