Are prisoners removed from the board as soon as they are captured? If so are the intersections that they previously occupied available for use in the ongoing game ?

Hi,

Yes.


Yes, provided that they offer legal moves.

The ko rule could be relevant here if one stone was captured, and playing at the space now vacated by the captured stone would itself capture that capturing stone back again, thus repeating the board position from 2 moves ago which is prohibitted by the ko rule*.

* go away pedants, this is the beginner sub-forum

To be clearer about this.

Yes, they are removed, and yes, those points available to be played upon. You say you are a beginner. Well if you stick with learning go, eventually you will learn about more advanced concepts. One of these is "under the stones" which involves plays made on points that become available after stones now on them are captured <<after making plays to that group of stones which will be captured to make the configuration such that the "under the stones" attack will work >>

Something to look forward to.