High handicap strategies ?

[Loons]

Some addled and scattered comments in the SGF. I don't really play high handicap a lot, but my friend (says his teacher) insists we play with allegedly appropriate handicap. It's a bit intimidating.

[Stable]

You have to make your stones behave much more efficiently than your opponents, especially at the start, so stay light and keep your options open as much as you can.

[freegame]

A big mistake a lot of people make is that they try to hard to overcome the handicap in the opening (or as quickly as possible), resulting in a lot of bad moves and weak groups.

Playing light in the opening is indeed a good idea, but don't overdo it. For example move 3 @ N4 would be fine.

Remember that you have the whole game to make up for the handicap. just play as normal as possible because of the rank difference you will be able to exploit their weaknesses, and eventually catch up and overtake them towards the end of the game.

[Loons]

Thanks for the advice... I do feel like I was trying to overplay this game, but considering how I was being passed sente back for merely a couple of points, I could have played in a more honest way and still made out fairly well.

[Li Kao]

One common mistake I like to exploit in handicap games is that when I play moves that look like sente but aren't, the opponent still responds.

[Jonas]

As already mentioned the best strategy is to stay calm. Dont overplay, just wait for the mistakes, they WILL come.

And maybe the most important thing: When you get a chance... grab it and hold on tight!

f.e. look at the position at move 26, white has sente and can continue with g3, now compare this position with the position at move 34. You can clearly see that White helped black to firm blacks territory. If you dont know how to continue on the left side with move 27, just change the direction, play c6 or d6.. MAKE THE GAME COMPLICATED!

And last but not least: Dont expect to win every game, there are many many players who play stronger with handicap stones and even if the handicap works properly, you should still win only 50% of the games, so dont pressure yourself when you've lost a handicap-game as white. You should simply be glad that you were able to help the black player evolve further.