On go servers like KGS, the system defaults to giving you full handicaps--a 3d player gives a 1d two stones (I believe that on either OGS or DGS, the system goes further, adjusting komi up or down to give handicaps that are even more accurate).

In contrast, at the go clubs I've played in, we're more lackadaisical about handicaps. At the beginning of a game, you might talk about who you've played against before, results, whether you took handicap from them. Perhaps you'll mention your KGS rating. If it seems close, and you haven't played before, you'll often hear "let's just play even and see how it goes". Of course these clubs didn't have formal rating systems at all (they were AGA clubs where not everyone necessarily had up to date AGA ratings). If the gap is obvious, or large enough, you'll use a handicap, but otherwise you might not sweat it. I think some tournaments handle handicaps by reducing all handicaps given by one or two stones.

The more I think about it, the less sensible the first system seems. What goal is served by trying to handicap every game to exactly 50-50? In other games I've played, you just play without a handicap. Those games don't have handicaps, so they had no choice, but the sky doesn't fall. If a game is too unbalanced that does suck, but I never catch myself thinking "this player is a 4:1 favorite against me, I better just give up." As long as the odds aren't miniscule, you will eventually win, and it will stick with you.

I'm wondering what the tradeoffs are for a system when choosing between full handicaps and diminished handicaps. It seems to me that one positive influence is that without handicaps, a quickly improving player should be able to move his rank more when playing against stronger players. Conversely, an overrated player might stay stuck at a high rank longer. Also, rank obsessed players might become more averse to playing weaker players. Lastly, it's possible that it would do bad things to the ratings math--though I don't know if there's any reason to actually be worried.

What do you think?

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Something that has bothered me about handicaps in clubs, is that people tend insist that you beat them three times in a row before acknowledging that you are getting better, whereas the servers tend do a better job of adjusting the rankings so that if you win against any three players in a row then you move a up a rank. I am not sure if that is just that one club or all clubs though.

IGS also adjusts komi between players that are approximately evenly ranked, so the ranking is quite fine grain, which is something that the lose knit clubs won't be able to account for.

My limited club experience and online experience are similar:
Against stronger players, I generally want even games. If someone weaker wants to play me, I let them call the handicap.

Online, I love playing uphill ranked with nigiri, but I consider a weaker player asking the same from me an annoyance (and the times I've accepted I've experienced "I just want to try something" before passing and similar.

NB KGS handicap is actually too low, right?

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My Programming Blog - About the evolution of my go bot.

I noticed that you need about 12-20 games on various servers to adjust a rank. Doesn't sound like a better job.

Well for one thing, the category of players who already have a tendency to think that they should have a higher rank and only want to play people with a higher rating than themselves would be encouraged in their behavior...

One possible idea would be to automatically adjust the default handicap to something like H-1 against stronger players as soon as a player has won a few games in a row. In those cases where a player is really severely underrated, he will keep winning consistently games that are more statistically improbable for his rank causing a faster rank change. If not the streak is over and the player plays at normal handicap again.

Also I'm sure many people would enjoy the occasional thrill of playing some more difficult games but it would be easy to allow people to opt out if they don't like it.

What's nice about this is that it requires no change to the actual underlying ranking system just in the way the default handicap is chosen so it won't break existing ranking systems.

In my club we just chat a bit and decide on the handicap before the game. For example yesterday myself and Tomukaze were playing and we decided on very uneven handicaps, I gave him 4 stones in two games and he gave me 8 stones in another game. Just to mix things up a bit. There are no ranking points at stake though which makes for a very different atmosphere. Normally I play even/reduced handicap games with the stronger players in the club and give whatever handicap people like to weaker/new players similar to Loons.

I wonder how much of our annoyance at playing weaker players with no handicap is just because we're used to playing handicaps. Again, I'm talking about the case where you're 1-3 stones removed from an opponent.

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Occupy Babel!

I think servers tend to default to the "correct" number of stones simply because that seems like a natural starting point, and at the end of the day that's more or less what rating systems are designed to do (provide an even game). Also for servers that allow handicap games to be rated, playing games at proper handicap will help keep things tuned / keep the handicaps spaced properly* I have seen the reduced handicap you describe at some tournaments, but usually only if there is a significant prize (just to favor the stronger players a little bit, and perhaps to reduce the efficacy of sandbagging). Otherwise, I'm pretty sure (in my experience) they were played at full handicap. Comparing games on a server to games in a club isn't quite fair, because club games are generally not officially rated. I think if you look at unrated games on servers you'll find people a bit more lax in their handicapping.


As for why do it? Mainly because it's there. In games that have the luxury of a carefully defined handicap to balance things, it makes sense to balance things to give as much parity to the outcome as possible, if just to keep things exciting. The closest comparison I can think of is golf, though most kinds of sports betting also handicap fairly well. Can we get by without handicap? Sure. Do we need handicap in casual games? Of course not, and personally I'm with you in that most of my casual games are underhandicapped. Is it a nice thing to have available? I think so, and if you're trying to build the most robust rating system I think it's a boon to have the games properly handicapped.




*Note: if the server's rating system is set up properly, playing games at the wrong handicap shouldn't really have a direct negative impact on the rating accuracy, however it would take more games to give you the same amount of information. If you have underhandicapped games you might need to differentiate an 85% from a 95% win rate, and opposed to 50% from 70%.

I think this is true.



On IGS, the closer a player is to your own rank, the more it counts towards your change in rank. IE if you are 6kyu and play a 6kyu evenly that counts more towards your rank than beating a 3kyu with three stones handicap. At least that is they way I understand it, so playing and beating much stronger players doesn't help nearly as much as playing and beating players that are near your own rank.

IGS is only a little annoying when you play a weaker player slightly weaker when they are weak enough to have no komi, and if you lose you get a huge ranking hit and they get a huge boost, though they didn't have komi. I don't think that is fair, but that is how the server goes, likewise if you can play and beat a player that is just above your own rank you get a big ranking boost.

Everyone loves to play even games against someone stronger than themselves, but conceivably still within reach. However, from the other side of the board, playing someone several stones weaker than yourself repeatedly in even games is beyond tedious.

In a club setting, I think it's good manners to play even games with people when you've just met unless the gap is very wide. But it is simply rude to refuse to take handicap when it's proven to be necessary.

Which is ruder playing without a handicap or not playing at all?

Hmm, the etiquette I've been exposed to is that the stronger player decides the handicap, the weaker player can ask for an even game but it's up to the stronger player to decide what'll actually happen. Of course this gets complicated when you get friendly with people and don't want to say no to them.

I get the impression that stronger players assume that they are being nice giving handicaps, and that playing them will somehow improve the weaker players game. Though in my experience at clubs mostly you just see mostly vulgar hamete. Also it seems the "stronger club players" are seldom disciplined enough to effectively use komi as an alternative to handicaps or freely placed handicaps, which suggests that they prefer the nirense fuseki because that is the only game they know. So I find playing these types of players to be a degrading experience, and prefer not to do it, until I can legitimately beat them evenly. Go be a professional player and study in a dojo and pass some tests then you can be considered an honor to play.

Hyperpape's original post brings up two distinct issues in which kgs (say) and clubs differ:

1. Tendency to play games where white is favored versus precisely handicapped games.

2. Tendency to rely on an absolute rank versus bilateral rankings.

The first, I think, is more a function of a club environment where people are friends than anything else. (Although black still wins 1/3 to 1/4 of reduced handi games, and I doubt any of us are statistically savvy enough to correctly judge whether victory is inevitable in that situation.)

The second is what interests me. There's no reason why a system as sophisticated as kgs couldn't keep track of who has beaten whom in individual pair ups and use uchikomi to set an individual rank while still calculating a rank in the background to match up partners who have never faced off before.

At that point among the anonymous ddk the system would function pretty much as it does now, albeit without a published rank, while the stronger players who all have history with each other would no longer be able to whine about their rank, since the matchup with each opponent would be based on history with that opponent. Meanwhile, just like a local club, a server that used this ranking system could outsource rank-as-bragging-rights to some other social organization. (or even let different rooms inside the server offer dueling rank certificates.)

People actually think it is an honour for other to play them? I find that hard to believe that would be at all common. And in my experience is that, if anything, when a weaker player takes full handicap it is more a matter of the weaker player being nice, and if there is less handicap the stronger player is being nice. When I play weaker players, they usually don't want to take handicap, or at least not enough to make the game challenging. So saying that giving handicap is trying to be nice to the weaker player sounds strange to me. But saying that the stronger player does it because s/he expects to be worshiped for it sounds even stranger.

How do you explain that "strong club players" don't like to use komi or free handicaps then?

I think there are two schools of thought to this. One is that hamete or trick plays are fine in this context, and the other that they are unfair. I think it depends on the way the game is played. If it's seen as a game to be won, then however you win is fine, within the rules; the handicap makes up for the fact that these will sometimes work. If it's more of a teaching game, then it's up to the stronger player to play in a way that is instructional. At some point, a player needs to learn to deal with trick plays, so provide that there is a review after, I think it should be acceptable even in an instructional game. The big difference to me is whether white makes sure that black learns how to handle the situation the next time it comes up, or expects to keep relying on it to further their own ego. This is more of a problem with the player than the handicap used, of course.

Tradition and consistency.

When a stronger player gives a handicap they've put themselves in a situation where they are behind on the board. This is a situation you can get yourself into during the course of a game so practice against it is important. The weaker player must make proper use of the stones to defend while not being too passive, a situation which can also naturally occur during a game.

Komi is not natural. If you were given a high Komi you can play very slow knowing that losing territory isn't such a big deal because you have guaranteed points.

The goal should be a fun challenging game.

These are subjective in my opinion for example one stone vs. having no komi. The no komi is more natural, because the player is free to place that one stone, which is IMO more natural. Counting komi and territory on the board are fundamentals of the game, and shouldn't matter whether there are handicaps or not, and stronger players not doing this indicates that they need to work on their fundamentals more and less on their hamete.

I don't. It is easy to think of possible reasons why people would dislike those forms of handicap, but don't actually know. I still think that the explanation that it is because they want to be worshiped makes no logical sense.