Cornering

In a ladder situation when no ladder escape exists, the attacking player can ladder into a corner and create a "quasi-escape piece" at the very last minute. This play is called cornering.

Example:

This results in a new ladder, but now the attacking player is defending instead.

Red could have also cornered earlier, resulting, for example, in a 4th row ladder for Blue.

Given enough space, the attacker can sometimes get an outcome that is better than merely turning the ladder, though not as good as a switchback. For example, starting from a 2nd row ladder, the following maneuver lets Red move towards the center, rather than parallel to Blue's edge:

Blue now has several options, but all of them allow Red to connect towards the center of the board:

Note how Red's 9 is connected to the edge via a double threat at the cells marked "*". If Blue instead plays 6 on the second row, things are generally worse for Blue:

Note that Red's 7 is connected to the edge via edge template IV2b.