From: "Dr.Eduard Werner" GMX DE> Date: 14 mar 2001 Subject: Re: handicap in the ladder On Wednesday 14 March 2001 16:30, you wrote: > The forced mates for 5p / 6p handicap just > makes it all worse. This ladder is an Internet > ladder and most, if not all the members will > be subscribed to this list and know the mso. > article about handicap playing. Again, you can always say you don't want to give a 5p/6p handicap. BTW, I remember Chiaki Ito giving me five pieces at the MSO, and I really had to fight for it! Against Nakao, I blundered a Lance at 6 pieces and he walked right over me. Before that, I had thought I know the 4-6 pieces handicaps well enough! > I'm just not interested about handicap > playing right now. I know this is much more > equal than that of western chess but I just > don't want to study it when I still have a long > road ahead in standard shogi. No offense meant, but this attitude means that your road ahead is *really* long. Handicap games are a great way of learning basic strategies and they improve your abilities at even games a lot. If you know how to handle a 4p-handicap you've learned a lot about Bogin attacks which occur pretty frequently in Shogi openings, if you can handle 2p you have quite a good understanding of vanguard positions. > If we're playing a real ladder people from the lower > ranks won't play against the top ones > directly. The idea is that this be possible. Otherwise people in the lower positions will never have a chance to play them and learn from them directly. > Say a player doesn't accept handicaps for > lower raked opponents but he does with > higher ranked ones. Doesn't that need > further regulation?. Moreover, to have in the > same list people playing with or w.o. > handicaps would spoil the balance of the > ladder. No, it wouldn't. But it would make it more probable that the people on the top positions (= with the top rankings) are good at even games *and* at handicap games. Apart from that, I don't quite follow you here. You wouldn't take handicaps from lower ranked opponents anyway. > People not accepting handicaps will play > under inferior circunstances compared to > those playing handicap. I think one of the > motivations of the new ladder was creating a > new one which showed, aproximately at > least, the level of the players. People not accepting handicaps from much higher ranked opponents will therefore get more points for winning and lose less points when losing, to make it fair. > If we're playing handicap, everybody should > be playing handicap. Mr Werner said that in > the US federation handicap games are being > rated. I guess handicap should be > compulsory then. I don't think this is necessary. Especially for people like you who don't *want* them :-) > I do think that it was a good idea to restart > the ladder to correct some errors from the > previous one, but, if this becomes a failure, > are we going to start a new one again?. I > think we better get a ladder working and > then apply improvements on it. Yes, why don't we just give it a try before we start seeing new problems? If you don't feel comfortable with handicaps, don't take them. Full stop. > Linares is just 70 Km away from my house. I > think next year I'm going to challenge > Kasparov if he is kind enough to give a > queen handicap :) You can hardly compare handicaps in chess and in Shogi, mostly because a little slip losing, say a lance, can be fatal when you're taking the handicap because the opponent get it into hand. BTW, if you're a queen's handicap away from Kasparov, a win at such a handicap would in our terms be evaluated as if you had played a player of your own strength. Best Edi