Is there a way to use handicaps in chess to bridge the gap between players of different skill levels?

Question

Handicapping is routine in the Japanese game Go (my best game). The basic strength unit is one stone, and a one-stone difference represents a full level of difference in strength.

I (about a 1500 player) once asked a 2100 player how much of a handicap she would need to give me so that we would have an equal chance to win. "Probably a knight, maybe more," she answered. I once took a knight handicap against a 2200 player and lost, but it was a much tighter, closer game than one with no handicap.

That might suggest that a pawn is equivalent to about 200 points of rating. Apparently handicapping doesn't do much for say, a 50 point difference in strength (you just play and take your chances). But above that, there might be ways to use handicaps. Even giving someone the first move two times out of three (as was earlier done in professional Go) might do something.

Or would it? Why hasn't handicapping been done much formally in chess, as in Go?

Answer 1

While giving an opponent the odds of a pawn or a knight might be fun to make the winning chances more distributed, it is by no means an exact method. I remember the exciting handicap match between Kasparov and Chapman. Kasparov won 2.5:1.5 by giving the odds of 2 pawns against an opponent of approx. 450 Elo points less. Since the 2 pawns given changed for each game, not all games were equally difficult for Kasparov. During an interview the former world champion said he feared the game most where he had to let go of the king's center pawn. So a pawn is not a pawn. And if I remember correctly he added that a two pawn disadvantage was much more than double a one pawn disadvantage.

Hence I believe you can't construct a meaningful metric system of which handicap is worth how many points.

Answer 2

Handicapping changes chess in a fundamental way that stones in go do not.

In go, getting an extra stone is roughly equivalent to having an extra move. In chess, losing a piece is catastrophic, and in a game between two players that are within ~300 rating points, losing a piece means loss of the game.

One other reason that handicapping is not done this way is that while you (1500 player) might lose to a 2200 player (barely) without a knight, it is highly unlikely that a 2000 player would lose to a 2700 player at a tournament time control.

Handicapping was done before rating systems became so prevalent. In clubs, players would be said to be "knight players" meaning that they needed odds of a knight in order to give a stronger opponent a good game. Similarly there were "pawn" players and "rook" players.

An easier handicap between two roughly equal opponents would be to give the weaker player white. This is roughly equal to 25-40 rating points ^[1]. Another common handicap is for the stronger player to play "blindfolded", meaning that he or she cannot look at the board, but has to call out the moves in order to play.

Answer 3

For "fun" games with players of different strengths you can use a chess clock and give the weaker player more time. This allows me to play against my son who is just learning a reasonable chance at winning. We often play where he gets 5 minutes on the clock to my 2 minutes.

Answer 4

In some ways, the rating system is the handicap. It's very similar to the odds given to less impressive horses in racing, or the less favored boxer.

If you over-perform based upon you and your opponents respective ratings, you'll have a net gain of points, even if you don't win many (any?) games.

I drew a master once and sheared him of many points. When he beat me at another match, he got like 1 or 2 points because according to the his rating it was expected.

edit, for the comment:

No, I understand the OP completely. The opponents one is paired with are based upon rating. When one's rating drops (or rises), one is paired with players in a similar skill level range. So the "handicap" is not having to play brutally better players as often. There isn't a practical way to handicap individual games in chess like there is in Shogi.

At low skill levels, players drop pieces so any sort of handicap would be pointless. Even at my cruddy level, a single pawn adds 200 or 300 rating points, and a piece would add 500 or more. There simply isn't a lot of granularity in chess handicaps.

Answer 5

Usually, handicaps in Go are used between a weaker and a stronger opponent to make the game more competitive, giving the weaker player more opportunities to attack and defend as would happen in an even game. This is done in turn to avoid the game from becoming a sweep by the stronger player, with the weaker player constantly fumbling defenses. The true underlying purpose of handicapping should be seen as accelerating the learning of the weaker player as opposed to making the game more enjoyable for the weaker player. If the latter is what the player wants, he should seek play with players of equal ability.

As described in Andrew's answer, unfortunately, there is no clear way to handicap a game of chess as there is in go. However, if the goal is to use handicapping as a means to accelerate learning chess between a tutor and a student, a common thing to do is to play a normal game of chess, and upon encountering a situation where the weaker player thinks he has a losing position a switch of sides is done upon request of the weaker player: the weaker player becomes the attacker, the stronger player becomes the defender.

From personal experience, a stronger player is a better chess player not because they have some magic ability, but because they see more possibilities and understand the variations better. In this sense, the stronger player is usually able to recover the weaker player's poor position (especially given the rating discrepancy between attacker and defender) making this a very instructive and hands on learning process. As a side effect, the weaker player is given the chance to practice executing attacks correctly.

Obviously for this to work, both parties must agree that winning and losing doesn't mean much, and it is simply play for the enjoyment of the game and to accelerate the weaker player's understanding.

Answer 6

For my niece and nephew (ages 5 and 7), I started spotting them four pieces of their choice ( minus K or Q) and each time they win the number decreases by one. We started by switching sides when things were going my way.

Answer 7

I have been handicapping student games for over 15 years, and my two favourites, if the relative strengths allow, are these: 1) White replaces queen with rook (about 4 points) -OR- 2) White replaces queen with bishop (about 6 points). Black, the handicap receiver, does not have a numerical advantage in pieces. Both handicaps are strictly worse than the standard even strength situation. The players do not need to know how to use chess clocks. Extremely easy to explain. Handicapping the queen will always impact the game, unlike for example removing a rook. Doesn't mess up many of the openings as much as removing a knight.

Another handicap that is popular with the kids, and even easier to implement now that many sets come with extra queens, is to power up the weaker player by replacing a piece with the spare queen--usually the QR or the KB. This one is also nice when giving a simultaneous, because you don't need a stock of spare rooks and bishops.

Ultimately, every chess coach has to ask himself or herself whether handicapping will benefit the club and the students. A large club with many students at each level may not need to. My school clubs have not had this luxury; regularly handicapping the stronger players does increase the staying power of the weaker players, and I haven't faced much protest from the stronger players either.

Anyone else using a system similar to mine out there?

Answer 8

Like some people have mentioned in the thread, both time and piece handicaps are popular in chess. You also can do "wager" handicaps if you're playing for cash or play-money currency.

There are several chess websites that now offer handicapping to help bridge the often vast skill-level differences in chess. Out of all of them I recommend:

http://www.velocitychess.com

This site allows ANY combination of piece, cash, and wager handicap. For example, as a USCF master, I may offer a weaker player an extra starting knight, his 5 minutes to my 1 minute, and 3:1 wager odds in his favor for a game. It is a lot of fun!

Answer 9

I play against kids at my high school, and they're terrible. I can handicap a queen and both rooks, but usually I still win. When you're playing against low-skill players, handicaps don't matter much.

Answer 10

Besides pieces, you can also give free moves, but both change the game. Playing while down a queen isn't about how well you can play chess, it's about how well you can predict your opponent's moves. Good chess is about making moves that are good no matter what your opponent does, not about correctly guessing what blunder your opponent will make. This is similar to how in games in general, there's only so much that a handicap can make up for bad AI.

Something that changes the game less is to give one player more time, but the problem with that is that there's a limit to how much advantage that gives: at some point, the weaker is taking so much time that the stronger player is simply using the weaker player's move to think. If the stronger player can think through two half-moves in less time that it takes the weaker player to think through one half-move, then giving the weaker player more time just helps the stronger player. This effect can be reduced by having two or more weaker players play the stronger player simultaneously. Playing blindfolded can also be a handicap, but how much this hurts a player varies.

Another variant, that is similar to ldog's suggestion:

The weaker may, when making a move, call out a positive integer. If they have not done so before, it is optional, but once they call out a number, all further moves must be accompanied by a positive integer less than the previous one. If this is not possible (i.e., the previous number was 1), and the move is not checkmate, they lose.

Until the stronger player calls out a number, the weaker can switch sides/colors freely. Once the stronger calls out a number, the weaker player can switch sides at any time, but this switch is permanent, and the weaker player now has that many turns to deliver checkmate.