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chess handicap[Subject Thread] [Add Response]

Jianying Ji wrote on Fri, Mar 7, 2003 09:45 PM UTC:

Chess had not had a tradition for handicaps, especially in the last 
100 years. (Before that in the 18th 19th century there was odds chess
which I thought looks like a good and fairly comprehensive system, but
strangely it does not seem to have been adopted by organizations like 
FIDE) So, recently I being thinking about handicap systems and thought
of a cross between shogi and chess that would provide a path toward 
handicaps. What I propose is then the weaker player given a set of tokens
that give him the ability to drop captured pieces as his own for the
price of the value of the piece he is too drop. In a even game the second
player receive a small set of tokens to balance first mover advantage.
If both player play with infinite tokens, the game becomes chessgi. If 
one side plays with infinite and the other player 0 then the infinite 
would probably have a guarenteed win. If both side have a limited supply
of token then the game would have a finer balanced hadicaps.

These are just some ideas, any comment welcome.

Robert Shimmin wrote on Fri, Mar 7, 2003 10:41 PM UTC:

In chess, the traditional 'odds' system has a couple of difficulties in
being made into a systematic method for handicapping.  In its original
context (usually, chess clubs where games were played for money) it made
sense, but in modern times, there is the problem that two beginners can
play at rook odds, and the weaker side will still occasionally win, but if
grandmasters played at rook odds, the weaker side could not possibly win. 
Ralph Betza has written on this extensively.

Also, there is the issue (which I think is the source of what I mentioned
above) that in an odds game, the side with more materiel may adopt the
strategy of attempting at every turn to simplify the game into a winning
endgame.  Of course, this is what chessplayers do ordinarily once they
have established an advantage in materiel, but in odds games, it adds a
late middlegame flavor to even the opening, and fundamentally changes the
game.

Shogi does not have this problem, because when odds are given in shogi,
the stronger player starts without one or more pieces (not in the other
player's hand; just eliminated utterly from the game), but if side with
materiel advantage attempts to capitalize on this by offering exchanges,
it actually complicates the game, because now both sides have pieces in
hand, and a piece in hand is more valuable to the better player than the
weaker one, so this strategy is counterproductive.

Jianying Ji wrote on Tue, Mar 11, 2003 06:57 PM UTC:

Thanks for the response. I have thought further, and thinks that the
dropping handicaps that I proposed suffers from similar flaws. Perhaps
the most chesslike handicap is to give the weaker side the chance to
augment the army temporarily. Say a set of tokens which for the price 
of one gives the pieces to take a step to an adjacent non-occupied 
square. One such token will probably be enough to even the odds between
the players when given to the second player. It would convert some draws
to wins and losses to draws. Though I could be wrong, for I am not too
good at judging these things.

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