How to play as white in handicap games?

[gostudent]

Hi,

How should one approach a handicap game when playing as white? I am not good (double-digit kyu); still, sometimes I have to play as white in handicap games when I play online. I've often found the initial black stones overwhelming, and unless my opponent plays multiple slow moves, I would be behind by a non-trivial amount when the middle game start. I feel obliged to start some fights that I don't really like. Sometimes my opponent makes enough mistakes to allow me to escape with a victory, and of course there are plenty of games that I lost during fighting. Being force to start a fight is not too enjoyable either.... so I am wondering if I should change my approach.

Any advice?

[TheBigH]

This is the whole point of handicap games. Black is ahead at the start of the game, by definition, and of course you'd expect some of that lead to still be there leading in to the middle game. It's necessary for white to play ambitiously and pick uncomfortable fights to catch up.

[moyoaji]

As white in a handicap game you have two ways to play. I think either approach is valid. It really just depends on your playstyle.

The first is to be very bold and aggressive. Pick fights. Try to get into a situation where reading and experience matters so you can overwhelm your opponent there. Complicated joseki, cross-cuts, etc. Some even advocate making overplays because your opponent may not know how to punish you. This is usually what players are told to do when playing against a handicap, and I'll do this a lot myself.

There is a second option, however. Play simply. Keep your groups strong. Wait for your opponent to make a mistake. Remember, this is a handicap game, so your opponent should make a mistake that you'll recognize. It might be a slow move, a poor joseki choice, or an overplay. When they do make a mistake, you punish them without mercy. This is the approach I strive for in my handicap games.

I think both options have their merits.

[shapenaji]

Play lightly, try to leave aji that isn't easily dispelled with one move. And move around until you have a sense for how the board is progressing.

Once you have a good idea of what your opponent is committed to, you are in a position to see what you need to win, and can start building your light groups into something more.

You have to be careful when making light groups though, you can't necessarily just make one move and then pivot to another part of the board.

Example: (Typically in a 9-stone game)

$$W
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . X . . . . . X . . . |
$$ . . . . . 1 2 . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ----------------------+

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . X . . . . . X . . . |
$$ . . . . . 1 2 . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ----------------------+[/go]

if white leaves this position now, he/she risks losing all aji when black follows up

$$W
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . X . . . 4 . X . . . |
$$ . . . . . 1 2 . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ----------------------+

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . X . . . 4 . X . . . |
$$ . . . . . 1 2 . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ----------------------+[/go]

So he plays out a full sequence, looking for an opening to shift his attention elsewhere

My first teacher would often use the following sequence, and then tenuki a move like a or b to get some power elsewhere

$$W
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . 5 . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . 4 . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . X . b . 3 . X . . . |
$$ . . . a . 1 2 . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ----------------------+

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . 5 . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . 4 . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . X . b . 3 . X . . . |
$$ . . . a . 1 2 . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ----------------------+[/go]

[Bill Spight]

First, to join the others in pointing out the obvious, you are giving a handicap because you opponent plays worse than you do. If he doesn't, in this game, you will probably lose. You have to rely upon your opponent's mistakes.

Second, the usual advice for White in a handicap game is to make the game close. That means overcoming the handicap. If the game is close, you will win around one half the time. That is as it should be, if the handicap is right.

Third, don't make it too easy for Black. Present Black with problems. That is not the same as getting into fights, although that may happen. See shapenaji's note for an example. Should Black attack the White stones, and if so, how and when? Problems. I saw part of a review of a pro game vs. a 1 kyu. To my surprise, the pro had left a killable group behind to play elsewhere. The 1 kyu had not killed the group. He had not even tried. Problems. Another way, if the handicap is not too large, is for White to make a large framework. Should Black invade, should he reduce, and if so, how and when? Problems. If Black solves the problems, he wins. Good for him. Next game.

Fourth, don't give up. Sakata once talked about the power of prayer when giving a handicap. Accidents can happen to your opponent, even at the very end of the game.

Fifth, take advantage of the fact that you are both DDKs. Swings are large in DDK games, which makes it easier to overcome the handicap. You don't have to try too hard.

BTW, in most of your games you should be taking a handicap, preferably 5 stones or more. But you should be giving some, as well, preferably 2 or 3 stones. Sakata said that if you don't know how to give handicaps, you don't know how to play go.

Good luck!

[gowan]

I recall reading somewhere, or maybe hearing this from a pro, that every time Black loses or gives up sente unnecessarily (in the opening?) it is as if there were one fewer handicap stones. This line of thinking can help White to judge when the game is close. Of course both players will have to be well experienced to know about sente this way.

[PeterHB]

I play 3 or so stones in an area and move on quickly, essentially leaving my white stones weak everywhere. Then I play overplays. The trick is by doing this you learn what are overplays, and also what works against weaker players. As they respond against your unreasonable invasions, think what you would have done against the white invasion, compared to what the weaker player allows you. This gives you a feeling for how outrageous your overplays can be as the game goes on. This way is fun, but risky. Essentially you either win big time or go down in flames horribly, losing big time.

I believe that stronger players favour playing more honest moves, creating reasonable groups that should survive, allowing black's slower moves to be their own punishment. e.g. black often takes gote for no reason, so white recognizes this, and plays his next move elsewhere. So white is just more efficient, and this adds up as the game progresses. This isn't the way I play, but I believe it is advocated by stronger players.

[shapenaji]

I may have read Kageyama's secret chronicles of handicap go too early in my playing career... but I actually have never subscribed to the idea that patience/honesty are the way to play handi go (Probably because I'm not a particularly patient person).

I think that you can play very efficient shape and take advantage of their natural inclination to be defensive (even against players at my own rank, 2-3 stones, with me on either side of the handi, is no sure thing)

It only takes a few slow moves, or one awkward shape to get a bit of pressure, and that pressure can quickly blossom.

[Uberdude]

Give your opponent plenty of opportunities to make mistakes.

[MagicMagor]

The way i approach a handicap game as white greatly differs by the amount of handicap stones. In a low handicap game (4 stones or less) i will not alter my play. I play like i would approach an even game, the mistakes of my opponents are more than enough to overcome the gap.
The reason is, that even four handicap stones leave enough room to play normal good shapes.

In higher handicap games things are a bit different. I will play more aggressive since there is just no space to calmly make territory.

I firmly believe that playing overplays as white in a handicap game is not a good strategy. It may help you win these games, but especially high handicap games are more like teaching games to me. The weaker players looks up to you and wants to see how you punish their mistakes and what better moves you play.
They don't want to see you making horrible moves and many mistakes, which only work because he can't punish them. Playing honest, good moves is the way to go as white in a handicap game, because you are in the role of the teacher - at least for this game.
This doesn't mean you can't fight, sometimes the best move is starting a fight or killing a group. Punishing the mistakes of black is important and correct, confusing him with overplays so he does make more mistakes is not.

But then i rarely play handicap games, so i don't think i'm particuly good at them.

[EdLee]

They don't want to see you making horrible moves and many mistakes, which only work because he can't punish them.

Except there is still value in this -- he cannot punish them precisely because that is his current level.
That he cannot deal with these "horrible" moves is not the "fault" of his opponent (White); the problem is gaps in his Go knowledge.
There is value to fill these gaps. There is value to help him improve until he can deal with these moves.
One way we know he can do it is for him to actually face these moves and handle them correctly and consistently.
Otherwise, how else would we know unless he faces these "horrible" moves over and over again,
learns from his mistakes in mis-handling them, and eliminates his mistakes until he can correctly deal with them ?

Playing honest, good moves is the way to go as white in a handicap game, because you are in the role of the teacher - at least for this game.

There are some flip sides to this.

Suppose White is kyu level or up to amateur 1 dan (approximately 6 or 7 stones from pro.)
This means White's "best" moves are still (on average) 6 or 7 stones away from pro level.
Which means one can debate what "good moves" mean for this White.

There is a story about Takemiya sensei (not sure if it's true or not): it is said he would only
play "good, honest moves" (precisely as your intended meaning) when he played teaching games
with his students. And if the student could handle his moves and win, he would be happy to lose
to the student. This is the intended meaning of what you wrote. But we have to remember
Takemiya sensei is not only a pro, but a high level pro. And that the Go moves he can play,
no matter how much most of us amateurs (especially for kyu and low dans) would like to emulate,
we simply cannot.

There is another story (true story) about another pro (not Takemiya sensei).
This pro had a student who "could not fight well." So this pro decided what might help
this student improve at fighting was to face overplays. So this pro would play overplays
like crazy with this student, which forced the student to learn to deal with them,
to eliminate the gaps in this student's Go skills and knowledge, until this student could
handle these overplays, until this student improved at fighting. Of course, what worked for this student
may not work for others. But at least we have one example where a pro decided
that it was good for one student to learn to deal with overplays (aka bad moves, deliberately played).

[Ember]

I'm not an expert in playing as white in handicap games and actually I was wondering about the OP' question, too. Still, from my experience in playing handicap games as black, I'd like to add another thing for white that I think didn't come up yet: Know where to stop.

This involves a little story that actually happened to me yesterday in my first tournament as a 5k. It was a small tournament in the swiss mode with only four rounds being played on one day. In those four rounds I got to play three dan players and with the first two players, these were really interesting and exciting games. In the first game I played a 1dan on four stones (the handicap was reduced by 1 in that tournament) and I got lucky and was able to live with a group that could (and should) have died and won the game. If I hadn't blundered in the second game, I'd have lost maybe by 2 or three points in the endgame, with the blunder it was 14 points which is still very fine indeed. Both were interesting games in which both of us poked the other here and there and the first one to make a mistake would have lost (quite) a bit, but it would still have been a playable game. No one went all out and overplayed (all the time) and it was all fun and games.
In the last round, however, I got another 1dan player. I played actively, like before, but I was massacred all over the place. Whenever I attacked, he just ignored that move and killed a nearby group of mine like nothing, or reduced my territory on another part of the board to almost nothing and the like. After the third such installment, when I had barely 30-35 points left on the board (we had played only about 100 moves so far) I had enough of this and resigned. I felt really mad and like a complete idiot when he even started to lecture me on how I should start to practice playing in corners a little more. This made me even angrier and I only barely managed to keep my mouth shut, just clean up the stones and leave.

What I want to say with this is: You can play however you like, of course, but please always keep in mind one of the virtues that I think not only for me are strongly connected to Go: Respect for your opponent. Only because you might be able to kill everything on the board, do you really have to play like that? Or is letting your opponent live small while taking bigger profit (outside influence and the like) also a possible option in that situation? The latter one also leaves good options to talk about after teaching games (like e.g. "Look, here I played like this and let you live although I could have killed you because of this move of yours here. However, I let you live because of this wall of stones I got which works together very nicely with this stone of mine over here and which is much bigger than killing those 10 stones of yours."). Of course, now we could argue that this was not a teaching game but a tournament game and all, but actually I still don't think that this fact justifies this kind of behaviour.

I only wanted to share some feelings and thoughts with you here and I sincerely hope that I don't sound like a sore looser now...

[Polama]

...What I want to say with this is: You can play however you like, of course, but please always keep in mind one of the virtues that I think not only for me are strongly connected to Go: Respect for your opponent. Only because you might be able to kill everything on the board, do you really have to play like that?...

Let me start with a caveat that I'm going to speak in generalities, knowing nothing about your game or your opponent's behavior. I disagree in general, but that doesn't mean you were wrong to feel angry in your instance.

One of the most important lessons I've learned as white in handicap games is that you have far less control than usual. I try to play good, flexible moves, but after that it comes down to black: if they're defensive, I need to expand rapidly and catch up. If they're aggressive, I need thickness to counter-attack. Especially in 4+ stones, black can usually prevent you from forming a base, at which point you just have to let him push you where he will. Often he'll push you into his own territory, or push you until you've got a strong dragon to counter-attack with. Sometimes he seals you in or kills you and you lose, but that's go.

So if your opponent was ignoring your attacks and responding by killing your groups, it sounds like you were (probably inadvertently) 'stealing' sente. You owed a move, but were taking initiative elsewhere. If your opponent responded locally and then you saved your group, you had done better than 'correct' play. It's hard to come back from that and handicap stones. So if my opponent fails to live in gote somewhere, it may be the case that I have to kill it to keep from falling behind. Often I didn't set out to kill, I set out to make a little profit in sente. But when the opponent doesn't defend, it's either get much more than 'correct' play, or get significantly less.

I actually view big kills in a handicap game as a sign of respect. I'm assuming the handicap is fair, and if I let you get away with things, I'm going to lose. That this mistake might be the last bad one you make. That even if I'm up by 20 points, you're capable of finding a clever move down the line reversing the game.

[SmoothOper]

I generally just blow off handicap games as white. The premise of giving or receiving a good game with traditional handicaps is flawed, and it doesn't really matter for your ranking whether or not you can beat someone with extra stones since the traditional handicap is a mere subset of go, if they win a couple and you take away the handicaps and then they can't win, because they only know handicap openings and handicap joseki, it doesn't matter, except they get a feel good for being able to win a game with a crutch.

[Bill Spight]

I only wanted to share some feelings and thoughts with you here and I sincerely hope that I don't sound like a sore looser now...

Your feelings are what they are. You don't need to justify them.

I recall a game where I felt disrespected and got angry. I was a new, and weak, 3 dan and took 2 stones from a 5 dan.

He took territory in one of the two open corners, and I made a wall. In the other open corner he made a weak group running out into the center. At that level, we would consider that group to be alive, but attackable. And I did press an attack. Then at some point, to my surprise, he did not respond in the center, but made an invasion that looked to me to be an overplay. He managed to live inside while I made another wall. Then I renewed the attack. Then he made another surprise invasion. Again, I was unable to kill it, and ended up with another wall. Maybe it happened again, at this point in time I do not recall. But finally his weak group ran into my original wall in the diagonally opposite corner, and his large group died. So I had big win instead of a big loss.

I was still upset. How dare he think that he could just invade at will! But, truth to say, he had lived very easily. Maybe his invasions were not the overplays I had thought that they were.

I'm not an expert in playing as white in handicap games and actually I was wondering about the OP' question, too. Still, from my experience in playing handicap games as black, I'd like to add another thing for white that I think didn't come up yet: Know where to stop.

Kicking a man when he is down is poor form. OTOH, winning a won game is not so easy. A coup de grace may be the best course. I remember a game where my opponent just kept playing on, while I kept thinking, "Why doesn't he resign?" Finally, I made a slip and he turned the tables. How embarrassing!

In the last round, however, I got another 1dan player. I played actively, like before, but I was massacred all over the place. Whenever I attacked, he just ignored that move

Well, White is supposed to tenuki.

and killed a nearby group of mine like nothing,

White is supposed to kill Black groups. Often that is the only way to win when you give four or more stones.

or reduced my territory on another part of the board to almost nothing and the like.

White is supposed to reduce or invade.

After the third such installment, when I had barely 30-35 points left on the board (we had played only about 100 moves so far) I had enough of this and resigned. I felt really mad and like a complete idiot when he even started to lecture me on how I should start to practice playing in corners a little more.

{snip}

Of course, now we could argue that this was not a teaching game but a tournament game and all, but actually I still don't think that this fact justifies this kind of behaviour.

It is not clear to me that White did not treat the game as a teaching game. He did give you pointers afterwards.

Now, I do not know whether your opponent disrespected you or not, and it is not for me to judge. And I do not approve of what bridge great Terence Reese called slap-dash tactics against weaker players. And certainly you cannot be blamed for your feelings. You took quite a beating. Your story is a reminder to those of us who give handicaps that winning isn't everything, that we should be considerate towards our opponents and exhibit good sportsmanship.