Komi (Go)

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Komi (込み, コミ) in the game of Go 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 komi is 6.5 points under the Japanese and Korean rules; under Chinese, Ing and AGA rules standard komi is 7.5 points; under New Zealand rules standard komi is 7 points. Komi 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 komi to break a tie (jigo) in favour of white, or no komi at all. Komidashi (コミ出し) is the more complete Japanese language term. The Chinese term is tiē mù (simplified Chinese: 贴目; traditional Chinese: 貼目) and the Korean term is deom (덤).

Efforts have been made to determine the value of komi for boards much smaller than the standard 19x19 grid for go, such as 7x7.^[1] When introducing Environmental Go, Elwyn Berlekamp made a broad generalisation of komi to illustrate the practical value of the temperature concept from combinatorial game theory.^[2]