Beginner Go Series E4: Ladders and Nets

These are methods for capturing stones:

• In a ladder, at each step the attacker reduces the defender's liberties from two to one (see image)
• In a net, one or more stones are captured by enclosing them, as it were, in a net of stones which has holes in it, all of which the attacker can block.

In general, capturing a stone in a net is considered better than capturing it in a ladder, because a net does not run the risk of a ladder block on the other side of the board.