Ladder

A ladder is a situation in which both players move perpendicularly to an edge making a straight unbroken chain. The attacking player's chain is almost always further from the edge. Here is an example of the ladder starting from b4 and c3.

a

b

c

d

e

f

g

h

i

j

1

2

3

4

Red (vertical) to move. In this situation red has a sure win due to his ladder escape on j3. Of course he can start another ladder playing a4 but in that case, blue has a ladder escape on b2.

Pre-ladder formations

Ladder handling

There are three ways for the attacking player to "win" in a ladder situation:

1. Making use of an existing ladder escape piece
2. Creating a new ladder escape with a Ladder escape fork
3. Cornering

Specific ladder strategies

Parallel ladder trick

Yielding