Page:Smith - The game of go.djvu/58

32 white stones, therefore, can never be surrounded, and form an impregnable position.

This is the principle of the two "Me," and when a player's group of stones is hard pressed, and his adversary is trying to surround them, if he can so place the stones that two disconnected complete "Me" are left, they are safe forever. It makes no difference whether the vacant "Me" are on the edges or in the corners of the board, or how far from each other they may be.

Plate 3, Diagram, shows a group of stones containing two vacant "Me" on the edge of the board. This group is perfectly safe against attack. A beginner might ask why the white group shown on Plate 3, Diagram, is not safe. The difficulty with that group is, that when Black has played at S 9, there are no "Me" in it at all as the word is used in this connection, not even a "Kageme" as shown in Plate 3, Diagram, because a "Me," in order to be available for the purpose of defense, must be a vacant intersection that is surrounded on four sides, just as a captured stone must be surrounded and therefore on the sides of the board it can be made by three stones, and in the corner of the board by two stones, but it is absolutely necessary, in addition to the minimum number of surrounding stones, to have helping stones to guard the surrounding stones against attack. This brings us to what the Japanese call "Kageme."

In actual play there are many groups of stones that at first glance seem to have two vacant "Me" in them, but which on analysis, will be found vulnerable to attack. A "Me" that looks somewhat as if it were complete, but is, nevertheless, destructible is called "Kageme." "Kage"