A group disappears, the game continues, and a few moves later you no longer remember how it became vulnerable. After a small-board Go game, returning to that single capture can give you a much clearer practice question than trying to explain the entire result.
Choose a capture you did not expect. Find the position just before it, count the group's liberties, and compare one possible response. Gopetal's recorded games, move replay and local practice copies can support this review. The note-taking routine below is a suggested activity, rather than an automatic assessment provided by the app.
Start with a finished 9×9 game. A smaller board limits how much surrounding play you must inspect, although a local fight can still be complicated. Select one group that you lost, or one opposing group you captured without fully understanding why it could not escape.
Replay until immediately before the capturing move. Identify the player to move and the stones in the affected group. Then go back another move. Ask whether the danger was already visible when you made your last decision. Record the move number if available, or describe the area of the board so that you can find it again.
If basic placement is still unfamiliar, first use the first 9×9 Go game guide. This review starts with a game you have already played.
A liberty is an empty intersection immediately beside a stone horizontally or vertically. Diagonal empty intersections do not count. Stones of the same color joined along those directions form a connected group, which shares its liberties.
Trace the entire group before counting. Count each distinct empty neighboring intersection once, even if it touches two stones in the group. A large group can have only one liberty, while a small one can have several. The number of stones is not a shortcut for judging safety.
Write two short observations: “Before the move: one liberty” and “After the move: no liberties, group captured.” If your count does not explain the recording, check whether a capture removed nearby opposing stones or whether you accidentally included a diagonal connection.
Here is an isolated local example, with all unmentioned nearby intersections empty. White has stones at D4, E4 and G4. Black has stones at C4, D3, D5, E3 and E5. The connected white pair at D4–E4 has exactly one liberty: F4. White's stone at G4 is currently separate.
If Black plays F4 next, the D4–E4 pair has no liberties and is removed. If it is White's turn first, White can instead play F4 and connect the pair to G4. The resulting four-stone group has five liberties: F3, F5, G3, G5 and H4.
That count explains what the connection changes. It does not establish the best move for a complete game, where other groups and territory also matter. In your own recording, perform the same comparison with the actual neighboring stones. A connection into another nearly surrounded group may provide much less room than this example.
In a local practice copy, examine one plausible alternative before continuing many moves. Could you extend the group, connect to another group, or capture an adjacent threatening stone? Check the resulting liberties rather than assuming that any defensive-looking move works.
Then compare that response with what you played. Perhaps you chased a stone elsewhere and overlooked the immediate threat. Perhaps your group could not be saved cheaply and playing elsewhere had a purpose. A capture alone cannot tell you whether the whole decision was good or bad.
Avoid turning a short review into a search for a perfect answer. If the sequence becomes a complicated fight, record the uncertainty and choose a simpler capture next time. Gopetal documents positional superko and no suicide; use the game's legal moves when testing sequences involving repetition or apparently surrounded placements.
Keep a small record in your own notes:
For example: “I counted only the stone I wanted to save. Next game, I will trace the whole connected group and count its empty neighbors before leaving it.” This describes an action you can actually check later. It does not require predicting the winner of every fight.
A suggested ten-minute review is two minutes finding the position, three counting liberties, three testing an alternative, and two writing the next-game observation. Stop earlier if the explanation is already clear.
Gopetal offers 9×9, 13×13 and 19×19 boards, local bots and visual lessons. Its official Apple listing describes saved recordings, move replay, continuing a local copy and SGF export. These provide ways to return to a position or keep a portable game record.
The Apple listings checked on October 6, 2026 specified iOS/iPadOS 26.6 or macOS 26.6 or later. Review the store page for your device before downloading. The exercise here concerns a local capture; Gopetal's final result uses area scoring, including 7.5 komi for White, so a capture count by itself does not explain the score.
Start with one instructive group. Expand the review when you can explain that example without rushing or losing track of shared liberties.
One liberty is atari. What happens next depends on whose turn it is and the legal responses. An extension, connection or capture may change the count, so examine the actual position.
No. The cost of saving it and the rest of the board matter. This routine teaches you to identify the local consequence before attempting a broader strategic judgment.
No. Recorded-game replay can be enough. Export is useful when you want to keep a game file or study it in another compatible tool; check that tool's import support.