Komidashi

Komi (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. Black's first move advantage is generally considered to equal somewhere 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. 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 favor of white.

Komidashi (コミ出し^?) is the more complete Japanese language term. Komi is known as Deom (덤) in Korean.

Conventional komi in most competitions is a half-integer such as 6.5 points. This is convenient and the prevailing usage for tournaments, since it rules out a tied game (jigo in Japanese) and rematches. 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 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 clear difference in skill. There is however a hidden parity question which means that a draw may be unlikely. Lately, the Ing Cup has been using an 8-point komi rule in their tournament, but with the rule that if the scores are equal after komi then Black wins, so this is equivalent to 7.5 points.

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