Prisoners

Prisoners are stones that have been captured and removed from the board. In territory-scoring systems, stones removed as dead at the end of the game are also generally counted as prisoners.

A stone or group is captured when it has no remaining liberties. The capturing player keeps the removed stones; where the rules require it, dead stones removed during counting are treated in the same way. Prisoners record what each player has captured and help determine the final result under territory scoring.

Prisoners are different from territory: prisoners are removed stones, while territory is empty board area surrounded by one player’s stones. Under area-scoring rules, captured stones generally do not add separately to the score. The scoring effect therefore depends on the ruleset, and dead stones removed at the end can be handled differently under area scoring.