If you vaguely say "you must make a move or pass", of course it is possible to imagine a move being various things. But if you are Chinese or Japanese, the word for move implies rather strongly that you place a stone and leave it there(it "adheres").

Don't forget that without the "suicide is forbidden" rule, you never get out of legal moves, so if a player doesn't want to pass, the game will never finish.

There is a rule which says that stones cannot be on the board if they have no liberties. An obvious consequence of this is that you cannot make a move which results in no liberties. Suicide is logically not possible.

Suicide is just a bad move (i.e. the name suicide....), because you can not benefit whatsoever from it. In fact you are hurt by it. You give your opponent an extra point, and it is their move.

There is a possibility you can use it as a ko threat. There are also times when you may consider doing it for extra time if it makes an answer required.

How can it be used as a ko threat? Using Araban's diagram:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Playing at T19 as White
$$ ------------------
$$ . . . . . . X O 2 |
$$ . . . . . . X X O |
$$ . . . . . . . X X |
$$ . . . . . , . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

if white plays suicide, all three stones are now gone and its black turn. black plays . Now white is in the position as before. Ko threat = 0.

Remember, a ko threat is a move which your opponent answers. Since black answered (in order to keep his two eyes), that *was* a ko threat. Ko threat = 1.