What are your triggers? (Go-related)

[benjito]

Komi and perfect play

I’m wondering… why have half-point komi values? The obvious answer is that it makes ties impossible, and yet… if the point of komi is to compensate for black’s advantage in moving first, then it seems like the correct komi value combined with mathematically perfect play on both sides should in fact result in a tie. So the followup question is who does the current standard komi value favor? Again with mathematically perfect play on both sides does 6.5 give white the game?

One might imagine two gods can play Go perfectly (just like humans can play tic-tac-toe or 5x5 perfectly)

If one assigns color and an imperfect komi, the result of the game is essentially a coin toss.