breakfast wrote:If you feel (I believe that Robert thinks so) that 2 stones are enough for him to beat top pro:
About 20 years ago, Cho Hunhyun 9p (that time Korean #1) played the match with other top pros. Professionals, who challenged him in title matches: Paek Sungho, Kim Soochang, Chang Suyoung and others. Match was played with changing handicap after every game. He won few games, giving them 2 stones!
Cho Hunhyun is a special case. This is a man who literally (correct usage of this word) won every single tournament in Korea in the SAME year a couple times. The closest approximation of his dominance over his Korean contemporaries is Go Seigen's dominance in his 10-game matches. Seo Bongsoo, who was the only person to even mount a challenge to Cho, lost something like 60+% of his games to Cho. Paek Sungho, Kim Soochang, Chang Suyoung are all players who couldn't beat Seo Bongsoo in the title challenger matches to get to Cho (the title holder). Cho could probably have beaten down Seo to a BBW handicap and Seo could probably have beaten everyone else down to a BBW handicap.
Cho is probably the worst example to use here as he was an extreme outlier. Even Seo would be a bad example given his dominance over everyone except Cho.