The two most important capturing tactics in Go are the ladder and the net, both used to trap enemy stones that try to run away. A ladder chases a stone in a zig-zag to the board’s edge, while a net calmly surrounds it from a distance without a chase.
Every Go player needs these tactics early, because they decide countless middle-game fights. Reading a ladder correctly can win or lose an entire corner in a single miscalculation.
How Ladders Work
A ladder, called shicho, starts when you put an enemy stone in atari and it tries to escape by extending. You keep putting it back in atari from alternating sides, forcing a staircase path across the board.
A ladder works only if it runs cleanly into the edge of the board without meeting a friendly enemy stone along its diagonal path. If any opposing stone waits in the ladder’s route, the chased group connects to it, escapes, and the whole ladder backfires disastrously.
Reading a ladder before you start it is essential:
- Put the target stone in atari from one side.
- Trace where it will run when it extends.
- Place your next stone to atari it again from the new side.
- Follow the imagined zig-zag all the way to the edge.
- Check for any enemy stone sitting in that diagonal path.
- Start the ladder only if it captures at the edge.
Reading to the very end matters, because a ladder that reaches a waiting enemy stone hands your opponent a huge wall and captures your chasing stones instead.
Ladder Breakers and the Net
A ladder breaker is a stone placed anywhere in a ladder’s future path, turning a losing chase into an escape. A single well-placed stone far across the board can flip the result, which makes ladders uniquely long-range.
Because ladders depend on the whole board, a stone that seems unrelated can secretly break or enable one. Strong players place stones that double as ladder breakers, gaining influence while quietly rescuing a distant group.
| Tactic | How it captures | Best when |
|---|---|---|
| Ladder | Repeated atari to the edge | Path is clear to the edge |
| Net | Loose surround, no chase | Ladder would fail |
| Ladder breaker | Stone in the ladder path | You need to escape a ladder |
| Snapback | Sacrifice to recapture more | Enemy fills a false space |
Never start a ladder without reading it to the edge first. A failed ladder is one of the most damaging mistakes in Go, giving your opponent a massive wall built from your own attacking stones.
When a ladder does not work, the net, called geta, is often the answer. Instead of chasing, you place a stone that covers all of the target’s escape routes at once.
Reading a Net Correctly
A net captures without a chase, but it still demands careful reading to make sure the trapped stone truly cannot escape. The classic net places a stone diagonally in front of the target, leaving it surrounded loosely rather than in direct atari.
A net succeeds when every escape route the target could take runs into one of your stones or a shortage of liberties. Unlike a ladder, a net does not depend on distant stones, so it is far more reliable in a crowded position, but you must still confirm the enemy cannot wriggle out through a gap.
Check the target’s attempts to run one liberty at a time. If each extension either walks into your net stones or fails to gain enough liberties, the capture holds. If a single escape path breathes free, the net leaks and you must find another move.
Nets also leave better shape than ladders in many cases. Because you are not laying a long line of chasing stones, your surrounding position stays compact and useful for later fighting. When both a ladder and a net capture the same stone, the net often gives the cleaner result.
Snapback and Sacrifice Tricks
Snapback is a capturing trick that looks like a blunder until you see the follow-up. You deliberately let your opponent capture a single stone, and because their capturing move leaves their own group with only one liberty, you recapture the whole group on the next move.
Snapback works when the point your opponent must play to capture your sacrifice becomes a self-atari for their larger group. Offering that one stone is not a gift; it is a trap that turns a single lost stone into a much bigger gain.
Sacrifice runs through many capturing tactics. Throwing in a stone to fill an eye, reduce liberties, or force a shortage of breathing space is a common way to kill a group that looks alive. The sacrificed stone does its job even as it is captured.
Recognizing these patterns takes repetition, so work through capturing problems until the shapes jump out at you. When you can see a snapback or a throw-in before playing it, you gain a whole class of moves that beginners never notice. Combined with clean ladder and net reading, these tricks let you win the sharp exchanges that decide close games.
Choosing the Right Tactic
The net trades a little efficiency for safety, since it captures without depending on the far edge or any distant stones. A net is immune to ladder breakers, which is why it is the safer choice in complicated positions.
Use a ladder when the path is clean and you want the extra profit of chasing, and use a net when the ladder fails or the board is cluttered. Both remove the enemy stone; the difference is reliability versus squeezing out maximum value.
Snapback is a related trick worth knowing. You allow the opponent to capture one of your stones, then immediately recapture a whole group because their capturing move left themselves in atari.
Practice these shapes with simple problems until reading them becomes automatic. A player who reads ladders confidently and reaches for a net when needed will win the small fights that add up to whole-board control. Master ladders, nets, and snapback, and the middle game stops being chaos and starts becoming a series of clean, decisive captures.