KGS Go Tutorial: Liberties

A "liberty" of a chain is an empty space sitting next to it. This is an important idea in go (you'll see why in the next page). For now, you can think of liberties as "breathing spaces" for a chain. For example, a single stone in the middle of the board has four liberties:

If that stone were on the side of the board, it would have only three liberties:

If you were to place an opponent's stone next to it, then it would have only two liberties:

Bigger chains usually have more liberties. Here are some example chains with their liberties numbered:

Now you can try out the quiz below. Do as many problems as you like, then move on to the next page of the tutorial.