It's often said that playing stronger players, even in handicap games, is a good way to improve. It makes sense that being exposed to better play would help you yourself get stronger. So my question is, what about playing weaker players? Assuming its an accurately handicaped game, what's the result of playing weaker players? Does it not help? Might it even make you worse

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"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

I would guess it would make you worse.

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be immersed

it will help you overcome taugh handycap but it will not make you weak.
you are still bounded by the simple rule..if you dont play right move you might lose points.

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"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

I think it's more like a ratchet system. It's mostly one-directional. You play a stronger player, you think "wow, that was clever", and try to learn new things. If you play a weaker player, you think "ah, that's a mistake", and you don't try to learn it

I have found high handicap games against weaker people is a very good way of getting yourself out of overplay habits.

I think it's quite important to play weaker players, especially while you're still improving and were at this level not too far ago. It helps to see and recognize the mistakes you were doing, but don't do anymore.

It is the only way I know to actually see that I've made progress : I don't feel that I play better, but it seems that my opponents are playing worse

If you want to play stronger people to learn there must be people willing to play weaker people.
It is by definition not possible for everyone to only play stronger people.
Therefore I think everyone who plays with strong people should also return the favor and play against weaker opponents as well.

I agree that playing strong people is more beneficial for improving your own skills. However playing weaker players also has several (unique) advantages in my opinion.

- you learn to make a comeback from difficult (lost) positions in even games.
- you get confidence. (when playing stronger opponents makes you afraid to try, because everything seems to fail)
- you earn to deal with strange moves you never thought of (skill of punishing mistakes).
- if you review it will help you get a better understanding of the basic principles you show during the review.
- it can feel good to know you have the skills to give someone a bunch of handicap (playing only stronger players and losing all the time sounds depressing to me)

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Laurens
Go school: freegame's Teaching School
Author of: The Next Move a book for 15-3kyu players.

Yes, I agree. More specifically, if you can win a game with 4 handicap, you will know how to play when you are behind in an even game. A friend of mine was good at the opening, but never played white in handicap games (his go club was mostly stronger than him or even). However, if he could not get an advantage in the opening, he never knew what to do. He hadn't learned how to invade and be aggressive, so he would always fight passively and end up behind. Many handicap strategies are quite useful in non-handicap games.

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

While playing a weaker player at the proper handicap, if you make an overplay which your opponent is unable to refute, both players may get the incorrect impression that the play is reasonable, or even good.

How? It seems that if you have a high handicap stacked against you, you have to overplay to catch up. I guess you could just patiently wait for mistakes, but I feel that I typically opt for the overplay.

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be immersed

My winning percentage went up when my overplays to catch up those stones went down - I find playing solid but deep moves are far more effective than complicated tricks. They still give the potential for good gain, but they don't have the downside of losing out if your opponent responds correctly.

This then has a knock on effect into even games, because the habit is to look for deep and subtle thought out moves.

I am a weak player.

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"Yeah, just imagine: A place where mosquitos carry off mid-size komodo dragons."

By the time I was your KGS grade, I'd been recruiting and teaching for about five years! Sure, you're a weak player; so am I, and so is almost everyone on the forum. That doesn't mean we can't teach those even weaker than ourselves.

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My European rating.