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Actually komi in go solves the problem that black won nearly all the even games between strong players, except when white was an exceptionally strong player.

Hence the original 4.5 points komi about 100 years ago. The half point is the part that turns a draw into a win for white, that starts playing after black. But it's not strictly necessary: we could state in the rules that white wins draws.

Black started playing less conservatively and komi was soon adjusted to 5.5 points. It became 6.5 points at the turn of the century. It's 7.5 with Chinese and area rules.

This variant of chess seems to me potentially unfair to the player that gets a bad starting position, one that loses most games or that could even be winning but only with a narrow and difficult path to find. It could work in a tournament if all players have to play all the initial configurations. In thnk


Just for fun: it is worth noting that there were/are other solutions to the "black wins" problem, usually in the form of playing multiple games and alternating colors, and stuff like kadoban formats where if you win multiple times you start getting pushed to get progressively larger handicaps and see if you can win then.

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