Draws, handicap & komi changes, and ranking limits lifted

As @hexahedron mentioned, best guesses for “perfect” komi, for all board sizes, are:

  • 6 for territory scoring
  • 7 for area scoring

Convention in most rulesets is that ties go to white, so 6.5/7.5 it is. Ing SST rules dictate 8 komi with ties going to black (still 7.5). New Zealand rules allow draws and use 7 komi (maybe you’d like to try that out).

It seems like some people find 9x9 harder as black, others harder as white. At 6.5, it does favour white by half a point (whereas 5.5 favoured black). The in-development ratings system change will include komi in ratings update to model this (dis)advantage.

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