Is 7.5 komi too high?

I just noticed that there are some difference in “komi” setting among games I played. The ones I placed have 7.5 komi. I thought that’s way high, am I right? And I also noticed that if I want to have a game set as “ranked”, I could not change komi setting.
Don’t know how you guys think about this.

The komi depends on the rule set and board size. E.g. on 19×19 with japanese rules the komi is 6.5.
Since the komi is intended to be appropriate you can’t change it for ranked games, since it would distort the result.
Also the values here are pretty standard, you can read more about it here.

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Komi of 7.5 (instead of 6.5) is a consequence of area scoring rather than territory scoring, which is more familiar to western players. In area scoring, so called “dame” points are worth something, so players fill them at the end of the game. But there’s a problem: there are 361 spaces. This means black will get the last space no matter what. It’s an extra advantage for black of one point, and it is accounted for in area scoring rulesets like Chinese rules as an extra point in the komi.

So don’t fret! The rulesets are designed to give the same result. I think that’s pretty cool.

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