in the
game of Go
Go is an abstract strategy game, abstract strategy board game for two players in which the aim is to surround more territory than the opponent. The game was invented in China more than 2,500 years ago and is believed to be the oldest board gam ...
are points added to the score of the player with the white stones as compensation for playing second. The value of Black's first-move advantage is generally considered to be between 5 and 7 points by the end of the game.
Standard is 6.5 points under the
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
and Korean rules; under
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
,
Ing
Ing, ING or ing may refer to:
Art and media
* '' ...ing'', a 2003 Korean film
* i.n.g, a Taiwanese girl group
* The Ing, a race of dark creatures in the 2004 video game '' Metroid Prime 2: Echoes''
* "Ing", the first song on The Roches' 1992 ...
and
AGA
Aga or AGA may refer to:
Business
* Architectural Glass and Aluminum (AGA), a glazing contractor, established in 1970
* AGA (automobile), ''Autogen Gasaccumulator AG'', 1920s German car company
*AGA AB, ''Aktiebolaget Svenska Gasaccumulator'', a ...
rules standard is 7.5 points; under
New Zealand rules standard is 7 points. typically applies only to games where both players are evenly ranked. In the case of a one-rank difference, the stronger player will typically play with the white stones and players often agree on a simple 0.5-point to break a tie (
) in favour of white, or no at all. is the more complete
Japanese language
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ...
term. The Chinese term is tiē mù () and the Korean term is deom ().
Efforts have been made to determine the value of for boards much smaller than the standard 19x19 grid for go, such as 7x7. When introducing
Environmental Go
There are many variations of the simple rules of Go. Some are ancient digressions, while other are modern deviations. They are often side events at tournaments, for example, the U.S. Go Congress holds a "Crazy Go" event every year.
National va ...
,
Elwyn Berlekamp
Elwyn Ralph Berlekamp (September 6, 1940 – April 9, 2019) was a professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley.Contributors, ''IEEE Transactions on Information Theory'' 42, #3 (May 1996), p. 1048. DO10. ...
made a broad generalisation of to illustrate the practical value of the temperature concept from
combinatorial game theory
Combinatorial game theory is a branch of mathematics and theoretical computer science that typically studies sequential games with perfect information. Study has been largely confined to two-player games that have a ''position'' that the player ...
.
Whole number and halves
Conventional ''komi'' in most competitions is a
half-integer such as 6.5 points. This is convenient and the prevailing usage for knock-out tournaments, since it makes a tied game (''jigo'' in Japanese) and rematches less likely (a drawn game is still possible under Japanese rules since the Japanese rule prohibiting repeated positions applies only to the simplest possibility, called 'ko'). In a club or friendly game this is not a problem, so a value such as 6 points is just as practical. Within a
Swiss system
A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the other ...
draw, tied games are not inconvenient and tiebreakers are used.
Some argue there is nothing wrong in having a tie. Forbidding a draw may misrepresent one player as superior when there is no difference in skill.
History
White is at a disadvantage because Black gets to move first, giving that player
sente ("initiative"). Records show that the winning percentage of Black is higher. The importance of playing first was, however, not dealt with by the rules until the 1920s, and then only tentatively.
The compensation (''komi'') system was introduced into professional Go in
Japan as a gradual process of innovation, beginning in the 1920s. The , a Go organization established in 1922 and dissolved with the formation of the
Nihon Ki-in
The Nihon Ki-in (), also known as the Japan Go Association, is the main organizational body for Go in Japan, overseeing Japan's professional system and issuing diplomas for amateur dan rankings. It is based in Tokyo. The other major Go associa ...
in 1924, used a 4.5 point komi among its many rule innovations. The correct value of ''komi'' has been re-evaluated over the years, as professional
opening strategy has evolved.
At first, komi could be as low as 2.5 points or 3 points. It was later increased to 4.5, and then 5.5 points. A komi of 5.5 points was used for a long time, but research found that 5.5 points was insufficient to compensate for White's disadvantage. Statistical analyses of the year's games would sometimes appear in the ''Igo Nenkan'' (''Kido Yearbook''), backing up the intuition of many top players. The use of databases confirmed figures such as 53% victories for Black, not just at the highest level.
''Komi'' was then raised to 6.5. Some events use as high as 7.5 points. Under the Chinese method of counting, the difference between 5.5 and 6.5 points is of minimal effect. Chinese sources usually in fact quote figures that are halved, such as 2.75 for 5.5, at least for Chinese domestic competitions, as one ''stone'' (the scoring increment typically used in China) is equivalent to two ''points''.
Handicap games are almost universally played with a komi of 0.5 points. The advantage of playing one or more black stones (the number usually calculated as the difference in player's rank) before the white player's first move constitutes the remainder of the handicap, with the 0.5 komi determining white as winner in games that would otherwise be a draw.
John Fairbairn, a Go historian, has written on the history of ''komi''. In his 1977 ''Introduction to Go'' he stated that the value was about 5.
Effects on strategy
Since very minor mistakes can cost one point, discussion of the 'true' value for ''komi'' makes little sense, except at the level of the top-ranked players in the world. These are (in most cases) also the opening-theory experts, and evaluate opening strategies in practical play against their peers.
The introduction and then increase of ''komi'' has led to ever more ambitious or aggressive strategies for Black, the first player. In the days before ''komi'', White as second player had to disrupt the smooth working of Black's classical strategies, described sometimes as aiming for a sure win by 3 points. From the introduction of ''komi'' in most pro events, around 1950, Black's older methods had to be reconsidered, since White suddenly needed appreciably less (in pro terms) in secure area. The
3-3 point
Players of the game of Go often use jargon to describe situations on the board and surrounding the game. Such technical terms are likely to be encountered in books and articles about Go in English as well as other languages. Many of these terms ...
became an interesting play for White, where previously it appeared experimental, and was developed in particular by
Go Seigen
Wu Quan (), courtesy name Wu Qingyuan ()His courtesy name was created based on his real name (''Quan'' means "spring, fountain" and ''Qing Yuan'' means "clear and pure source of water"). (June 12, 1914 – November 30, 2014), better known by ...
and
Sakata Eio
was a 9-dan Japanese professional Go player.
Biography
Sakata became a professional Go player in 1935. His first title match was the Hon'inbō in 1951 when he challenged Hashimoto Utaro. More than usual was at stake in the match because Has ...
.
In the following decades a mixture of classical and ''
shinfuseki
or ''new opening strategy'' was the change of attitude to go opening theory that set in strongly in Japan in 1933. It corresponds, a little later, to hypermodern play in chess, with the inversion that ''shinfuseki'' thought the center of the boa ...
'' techniques became normal. The most obvious effect was the replacement of the
4-3 point
Players of the game of Go often use jargon to describe situations on the board and surrounding the game. Such technical terms are likely to be encountered in books and articles about Go in English as well as other languages. Many of these terms ...
by the
4-4 point
Players of the game of Go often use jargon to describe situations on the board and surrounding the game. Such technical terms are likely to be encountered in books and articles about Go in English as well as other languages. Many of these terms ...
as the most common way to first occupy a corner.
Perfect Komi
In theory a perfect value of Komi would make each game result in
Jigo (draw) given perfect play by both sides. Since in practice no human or computer can play perfect Go, this value is not known with certainty. However under
area scoring rules and in the absence of
Seki the perfect Komi can be shown to be an odd integer and statistics from professional and computer play suggest that 7 is the correct value.
Local variations
Although 6.5 points is a common komi as of 2007; each country, association, and tournament may set its own specific komi:
* In Japan, the usual komi was once about 2.5 points. Some time later, it was raised to 4.5 points. In 1955 the Oza became the first tournament to adopt 5.5. The value of 5.5 became standard over some decades. The Nihon Ki-in increased the komi to 6.5 in 2002, citing Black's 51.855% win rate under the old rule.
* In Korea, it used to be 5.5, but is now 6.5.
* In China, 5.5 points was common, but 7.5 is now standard. A value of 6.5 would seldom give a different result from 5.5 due to Chinese scoring rules.
* In America, American Go association (AGA) official rules used to specify 5.5 points, however they later suggested also experimenting with values up to 8.5 points in both informal games and tournaments in order to gather data to determine the effects of increasing U.S. komi officially. The American Go Association changed komi from 5.5 to 7.5 in August 2004, effective 2005.
* The New Zealand rules specify a komi of 7.
* For the
Ing Foundation
Ing, ING or ing may refer to:
Art and media
* '' ...ing'', a 2003 Korean film
* i.n.g, a Taiwanese girl group
* The Ing, a race of dark creatures in the 2004 video game '' Metroid Prime 2: Echoes''
* "Ing", the first song on The Roches' 1992 ...
(Ing rules) komi is specified as 8 points. Due to the different counting method used by the Ing system, this komi is equivalent to 7.5 points under the Japanese rules.
Types
Fixed compensation point system
By far the most common type of ''komi'' is a fixed compensation point system. A fixed number of points, determined by the Go organization or the tournament director, is given to the second player (White) in an even game (without
handicaps) to make up for first-player (Black) advantage.
Auction komi
As no one can be absolutely sure of the ideal value for komi, systems without fixed komi are used in some amateur matches and tournaments. This is called auction komi.
Examples of auction komi systems:
* the players do an "auction" by saying: "I am willing to play black against XXX komi" and the player who wins the auction (offers the highest komi) plays black.
* one player chooses the size of the komi, and the other player then chooses to play black or white. This version of auction komi becomes equivalent to the
pie rule
The pie rule, sometimes referred to as the swap rule, is a rule used to balance abstract strategy games where a first-move advantage has been demonstrated. After the first move is made in a game that uses the pie rule, the second player must se ...
to Go, if choosing the size of the komi is considered to be a move that white player makes before the game would normally start.
Pie rule
* One player chooses komi, and the other player chooses whether to play black or white.
OR
* Black places his first stone, after that white decides whether he wants to play black or white.
See also
*
Pie rule
The pie rule, sometimes referred to as the swap rule, is a rule used to balance abstract strategy games where a first-move advantage has been demonstrated. After the first move is made in a game that uses the pie rule, the second player must se ...
Notes
External links
Sensei's Library
{{Go (game)
Rules of Go