Handicapping systems - levelling the playing field

The most common odds I've played (a piece often too much) is pawn and move. This usually means that the better player has Black and his f pawn removed.

Additionally, when playing piece/rook/queen odds, the odds giver plays white and usually has the moves a3 and h3 already played. The idea of this is to prevent the odds receiver playing for simplification to a won endgame, they are forced to play a whole game.

Fair enough. However, in a game between two very poorly matched players, the outcome is always going to be predetermined - unless the stronger player plays with less effort - which is already a variation of sorts. By balancing the odds at the outset (in an analagous way to giving a younger, slower runner a head start), both players can then play at maximum intensity, which is closer to the essence of chess.

This generally works well in timed games.

When both players have days to move, the game become effectively untimed, so a time advantage turns out not to be a real advantage.

I have no interest in handicapped games at all; any version.  Gimmicky, and not chess to me. And not good for building skills.  If I play a player that is clearly superior I try to learn while getting the beating.  If a play a much weaker player, I give a lesson.

As a 'new game', Fischer was on to something with his idea, but that really only would apply to GM level players who need more challenge to maintain sharp strategic and tactical interest as a novelty.  A terrible waste of time for lesser players, and probably not beneficial to low-end GMs with higher aspirations.

This is a great idea: it would enable setting up training postions when people tutor each other, which happens a good bit I believe.

As normal as you a can, yo!

The only handicapp I'll ever play with (either accepting or giving) is time.  It's pretty sad losing a blitz game when your opponent was given 1 minute and you had 5, but the 600 points rating difference is a good excuse... I think

So you wouldn't give any quarter to a player rated say 800 points below you (not even in an unrated game)?

Arithmetically, the difference between 1600 and 2400 is the same as between 800 and 1600. However, in my opinion, an 800 player is probably just starting out and certainly needs encouragement. I personally, therefore, would lighten up considerably on an 800 player.

Handicapped games would have to be unrated as a rule.

Piece odds should be something that can be accomplished now by using a pre-set opening position.  Even if there's a requirement that the pre-sets come from a series of legal moves starting from the standard starting position one (rather kludgy) workaround would be to march a Knight into the other sides camp to take the piece being granted and to head back to its original square all while the other side shuffles a knight to and from its starting square.

But how would you define that critical point, when the weaker player is "fairly certain to lose"? Who gets to make that call?

The "weak" form of the handicap is nothing. Just say "mate in 500 moves or less" and there's basically no handicap.

The "strong" form of the handicap seemed huge at first, but actually it's also small. The stronger player can simply say "mate in 50 moves," then get a winning position, trade off all the weaker player's pieces (leaving just a lone king), and delay mate until move 50.

Just seems like there's a lot of loop holes. Any historical examples of this handicap being used?

I made this one up. They are all intended to be used in a friendly environment.

I was 10 points down against a stronger player (from Canada), in a position where I would normally resign. Partly as a joke, I proposed that the outcome would be considered a draw unless my opponent met this criterion. As I recall, he opted for 10 moves to finish me off, but it actually took him 11.

Seems like there's two interpretations of the conversation:

1. Should people be able to set their own handicap up for an unrated game, by prior agreement?

2.  Should unrated games between people with significantly different ratings become automatically handicapped?

Seems an awful lot of people are assuming the second without stating it explicitly.  For the record, I would absolutely love the first option, and was truly surprised that I couldn't do it.  For all the other features on the site, this seems a really big oversight.

For the anti-handicappers, nobody's trying to force you to play handicapped games!

An extension of this particular handicap is to allow a predetermined number of takebacks during the game.

Maybe I missed this in earlier... but would raher like to see  a  specified number of take backs allowed in ratio to ratings held

It would be a good idea to have a guideline - but it would also be useful to be able to adjust it on an ad hoc basis. Suppose you give someone 2 takebacks - and still beat them easily; then you could give them 4 in the next game; then 8 and so on.

Unlimited takebacks have their drawbacks. I'm playing someone in a takeback game which is unlikely ever to end; whenever I gain a slight advantage, my opponent takes back several moves to level the position again.

If I follow you correctly, you're not in favour of balancing a game to make it fairer. So with your rating of 1659, you apparently don't reckon you could still beat a 1300-rated player say, if you gave him or her a couple of takebacks?

I'm surprised no one mentioned TIME ODDS - one of the most logical methods of handicapping when one player is clearly better than another in a standard TL. Most of the methods in the wikipedia article strike me as bogus, to put it mildly.

Time odds is great when you are face to face or playing live, but very difficult to do for turn based...

Instead of regular takebacks, here's a cool variation:

Once per game the weaker player can force the stronger player to take back a move, and move something else.

I reckon this can overcome a 300 point rating difference, the weak player gets  some serious tactical opportunities if used correctly.