That's news to me, do you have a source? Or are you just making things up?

Based upon statistics, almost 40 years ago I predicted that Japanese komi would be 6.5 by the turn of the century. Almost! Not too much later an article in the American Go Journal opined that correct Japanese komi was 7, based upon pro statistics with both 4.5 and 5.5 komi. Early in the 1980s (IIUC) Ing set komi for area scoring at 7.5. also based upon statistics. The sense that komi should be around 7 has been in the air for a long time. As pros get better, maybe komi will be shifted upwards, but don't hold your breath.

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The Adkins Principle:
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Visualize whirled peas.

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I am always puzzled by this kind of statement. Since "perfect play" is undetermined, how does this make correct komi "well-defined"?

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

A unicorn is well defined.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Not sure that follows. Didn't they "solve: checkers? People still play it...

I hear something similar said long time ago about chess... once there are (cheap) computer programs able to beat any (almost any?) human, there will be no point playing chess.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Give the above statement, the 0.5 point added/subtracted to/from komi is indeed unfair. Because then one side, in spite of playing perfectly, might still lose the game - if the other side also plays perfectly.

What's more, there are errors in Go which can cost less than 0.5 points, according to the fraction crunchers. In such case, it is possible with fractional komi that one side played perfectly, while the other did not, and the perfect side still lost. Which seems to go against the whole idea of Go, and be really really unfair.

Why are we so afraid of draws in Go?
I can understand that pro sponsors and organizers have it "easier" when draws are eliminated, but is that really what matters?

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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

It is possible that a player does not play the biggest move, but still gets a perfect result. Consider the case where the only move left with any value is a one point ko. As black, it is my turn, and I can fill the ko, which is worth 1/3 of a point according to endgame theory. Instead, I pass, and my opponent takes the ko. Since I have more ko threats, I then go on to win and fill the ko, and I have lost no points. So, although locally I played sub-optimally, globally that was still perfect play.



In KO tournaments, it is necessary to eliminate draws. In most other tournaments, it is not, and indeed there are events that have whole komi (Cassandra mentions one earlier in the thread).

But a whole komi is only more fair if it is the correct komi.

Suppose the correct komi is 7. That means that a komi of 6.5 gives an "unfair" result in those games which black wins by 0.5, which should have been ties. A komi of 6, on the other hand, would lead to an unfair result not only in games black wins by 1 point, which should have been ties, but also in all draws, which white should have won by 1. So the application of a wrong whole komi doubles the number of unfair results!

I don't understand your point. Proven or not, it does seem like a reasonable assumption. Play wouldn't be very "perfect" if it led to a loss.

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Patience, grasshopper.

It would, if the game were unfair?

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Confucius in the Analects says "even playing go is better than eating chips in front of tv all day." -- kivi

Indeed, for example Connect Four is solved and the first player wins with perfect play from both sides. Whereas tic-tac-toe (noughts and crosses) is solved and is a draw. It depends how much of an advantage the first move gives you. For Chess we don't know yet, though I expect most would agree it is less than in no-komi Go.


As for a perfect game to bare with you, I think it would be strip poker.

As already pointed out, yes, it would.

More examples:

- It may turn out that even with perfect play, Black will lose in chess. It could be a draw. We still don't know.

- This one our high school math teacher taught us, perhaps more of a warning, because he didn't provide a rigorous proof: as time goes to infinity, the probability of going bankrupt, if you choose to gamble non-stop, is 1.0. Therefore, the only way to "win" is not to play at all.

- Similar line at the end of WarGames.

"Perfect play" only means the best outcome for a player; it does not imply a particular result (win, draw, loss, or no result. )

So the original assumption is huge, and therefore worth questioning.

While the idea of a "perfect game" isn't agreed, one version of that idea would be that a game should neither favor the first player nor the second when played by ordinary humans (this can still be achieved in a game that doesn't have the potential for draws). A game like Chess might theoretically be a draw, but practically, it has a significant first player advantage. Among strong players, Black is playing for a draw, White is playing for a win.

Hex and Havannah seem to come close to achieving this based on swap. In Arimaa, one player gets the first move, but the second gains information from seeing the first player's setup.

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Occupy Babel!

I find this discussion very interesting, because I actually have the opposite opinion about fairness in komi. I don't care what perfect play results in: we're not going to play perfectly. I care about the general level of play as black and white in the go playing population.

Specifically, correct komi may very well turn out to be 12. It would be an unintuitive result, but mathematical extremes often are. Who can say where some singularly most effective series of moves will lead, precisely. Were it the case that komi is 12, should we mortals really play with that? Accept that the biggest statistical factor in an even game is nigiri, so that white isn't disadvantaged by the possibility that black achieves perfection in this game? We don't know correct komi so we can't consciously set it if we wanted to, we don't know if it would be fair for humans even if we did have it, so I don't see how 0.5 changes the fairness pragmatically.

http://senseis.xmp.net/?Komi
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komidashi

I was recalling from memory what I read quite a few months to a year ago or so, and mistakenly thought that it said "1.5" . I'm sorry, that was my error.

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On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

Not to nitpick, but: No, it is not.
Example: Chess has both (frequent) draws and KO tournaments.

In KO tournaments it is "convenient" (for the organizers) to eliminate draws, but it is not necessary. Other provisions can always be made.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

I don't really understand why everyone wants komi to "be fair". Now, it seems to me that the majority of people in the go world agree that having the 0.5 is fine because it makes things easier for tournament sponsors. A lot of people here seem to be saying that if both players played perfectly, then that 0.5 is unfair and just arbitrarily awards the win the person komi happened to favor. Thing is, though, that it is obvious that the losing player didn't play perfectly, or else he/she would've won the match . It's not like the 0.5 was added to the score after the game was finished, both players always know about komi going into a game, and if they can't properly deal with komi then it's to bad for them if they lose.

Why is it obvious the loser didn't play perfectly? I played perfectly, but my opponent played perfectly also. I was behind on move 1 by 0.5 because of the komi, and I was behind by 0.5 at every step until they very end.

I fail to see how you can lose the game and still claim to have made perfect moves. That 0.5 is something you have to account for throughout the entire game and if you can't do that then you clearly didn't play good enough moves to win the game. If your moves can't even be called "good enough", then how can they be called perfect?

You lost nigiri.

And what about the other (winning) player? Your reasoning doesn't hold up, because it would mean perfect play is impossible.
With 0.5 komi there is always a winner after the game, regardless of the moves played. If both player played perfect, that means they always made the (objectivly) best move possible, one player still looses because of komi.
By your reasoning, he had not played perfect, because he would have won otherwise, but he played the best moves possible, so there is no room for improvement there, so by definition he played perfect.
Also if the losing player had played, by your definition, perfect he would not have lost, so the other player would have lost, which means he would not have played perfect.
So by your definition it is impossible that both player play perfectly if the komi is 0.5 but it is possible if the komi is even? I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound very convincing.

Back to the actual question at hand. Obviously a komi with 0.5 can't be fair, assuming the actual game is fair. (That means there exist a number X so that a perfect game from both players with komi X will always result in jigo)
But komi is a pretty new concept in go (at least compared to the long history of the game itself) and was/is changed over time. Amateurs don't play perfectly so give or take 0.5 points from komi don't make the game fair or unfair. (Sure some games change winner if you change the komi by 0.5 points, but that isn't to say the komi is unfair) Having a x.5 komi is just a choice made, to eliminate draws.
I think the actual question isn't if it is fair or unfair but if we want draws or not. Some amateur tournaments like draws and mac-mahon tournaments can handle them without problems, so some tournaments already use 6 or 7 komi, without the half point.
But in the pro-scene with KO-tournaments or the best-of-x title games in japan, draws would make everything more complicated. Not impossible to handle, but it would result in extra work. Given how close most pro-games are currently i would assume without the 0.5 komi the chances of having draws is a lot higher than in the typical amateur tournament. And handling draws properly would either mean more games or use some other arbitary chosen tie-breaker, which may in itself also be unfair.

All in all, i think there are good reasons why the x.5 komi is accepted in the pro-scene.

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Magics way up the hill (personal study journal)