Ladder escape
In the ladder situation below, the piece h8 is a ladder escape, or an escape piece.
It allows Red (the attacking player) to jump a move ahead of the ladder and win the game. Red can play along the ladder, forcing Blue's response at each step. After move 9 at g8, Red is connected to the bottom.
In general, for a ladder escape to be successful, it should be safely connected to the edge and not interfere with the ladder's projected path.
To escape a ladder, it is not necessary to have an escape piece on the projected path of the ladder.
In the example below, Red 1 threatens to connect to the group above as a means of outrunning Blue's ladder.
After the sequence to Red 7, Red can now connect 5 back to the main group through either of the spaces marked with *.
