This articledoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved. Find sources: "Capturing race" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(September 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In the board gameGo, acapturing race (Japanese:せめあい,Hepburn:semeai;Korean:수상전soosangjeon) is a tactical situation created in positions when both players havegroups striving to capture each other, in some closely delimited area of the board. Typically it is not possible for each side to create a safe group withtwo eyes.

One common outcome is that one group is captured, resolving the race. In the most simple situations it is possible to predict this result, by counting theliberties on each group: if for example there are four liberties each, the advantage will lie with the player able to play first, while if one side has four liberties and the other five, the result is already decided and neither player will continue (the player who is behind will normally leave the area alone, seeing it as a future source ofko threats).

There are numerous other possible outcomes, for example aseki, ako of a direct or indirect nature, and (rather rarely) more exotic types of repeating situation such astriple ko orchosei. In the more orthodox races some theory is available to help understand the status as far as liberties goes, when these are not obvious; but such theories are not so far able to give an exhaustive description of all capturing races.

This problem (Difficulty: 5 dan) begins with B1. Can white save his stones and "make life"? This kind of problem is called a semeai; where one is in a "race" to capture the opponent first...	W2 is the correct move here. Black approaches with B3, and white protects with W4. Note that both B and W groups have four liberties, and now it's Black's move...	After the next few moves, the situation becomes clearer. Despite black's best responses, the five white stones have one more liberty (the one below move 9) than black does. If it's not clear how white survives, see the next image for detail...	After W10, B11, W12, the black stones are in atari. When eventually black plays 13 (as a ko threat), white can capture the four black stones.

• International Go Federation

• Sensei's Library page

• Go strategy and tactics

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles lacking sources from September 2010
• All articles lacking sources
• Articles containing Japanese-language text
• Articles containing Korean-language text