A question about handicaps

[EdLee]

The purpose of a tournament is to search for the strongest player.

No.

This is an odd statement for me. Singling out the best player is always the main goal in a tournament where I'm from.

Love of the game and part of the journey to become stronger.

But this is the most important, for the majority of the players.

We did not hold tournaments to search for the strongest player, we held tournaments to have fun.

A few more:
For some pros, it's their job; it's how they make a living.
For some sponsors, it's advertising -- they don't care who wins, as long as the tourney lasts as long as possible.
For some sandbaggers, it's for their own ego at the expense of others.
For some, it's not only for fun or to polish their Go, it's to polish themselves.
So it really depends on who you ask, which IMO is also the answer to your original question.

Another element (which both jts & shapenaji touched upon) is for teaching purposes (this is quite interesting ).

[Uberdude]

Something that Fulan might not realise if he is new to Go is just quite how huge the range of skill is. From 30k to 9d is about 40 stones handicap (though you don't usually play with more than 9). If a 30k played a 20k even 100 times the 20k would win 100 times. If a 20k played a 10k even 100 times the 10k would win 100 times. If a 1d played a 10k even 100 times the 1d would win 100 times. If a 9d played a 1d even 100 times the 9d would win 100 times. If a 9d played a 30k 1000000 times I would bet my life on the 9d winning 1000000 times (assuming he doesn't die of boredom). Such a wide range of skill, and the sharpness of winning probabilities ([sl=EGFWinningStatistics]EGF Winning Statistics[/sl]) between just a few ranks difference is stronger in Go than most other disciplines. For example in Chess it is not uncommon for a quite a bit weaker player to get a draw (or even a win) against a much stronger player: a ~2200 Elo friend of mine recently drew against Veselin Topalov (2750 Elo, former world #1). In Go this is like me, a 3d amateur, drawing against Kong Jie 9 dan pro, which is so ridiculously unlikely it's practically impossible (even with integer komi ). So handicaps allow players of different strengths to have close, and therefore more interesting, games.

As for tournaments, most aren't handicap because now the games are competitive and we want the stronger player to win. I agree winning handicap tournaments is rather vacuous as they are basically sandbagging contests. McMahon really is a wonderful system and is what practically every tournament in the UK (and Europe too I believe) uses. I think in America rank bands are more popular.

You cannot win a McMahon tournament by sandbagging or playing handicap games. Above the bar all games are even (see http://senseis.xmp.net/?McMahon for details). In fact entering with too low a rank can actually stop you winning if you enter below the bar. As an almost example take the recent British Open (http://www.britgo.org/results/2012/british). Malcolm Pang was new to tournaments and entered at 1d. He won all his games except his final one against Andrew Kay. Even if he won that game (and I (Andrew Simons) lost my final one) and hence he would be on 6/6 and the sole highest McMahon score he would not win the tournament as he was below the bar.

[Fulan]

@edlee For teaching purposes and to explore the game I fully understand handicaps. I would do the same when playing lesser players in casuals. I'm mainly known for the old Street Fighter II series on arcade and I would either pick characters I'm not as familiar with or intentionally play in patterns so my opponent can learn what is punishable. It's not really the same as handicaps but I'm not playing at my optimal level.

So just to clarify I'm not against handicaps in Go. I couldn't possibly have formed an oppinion yet.

@uberdude About the last example. By below the bar you mean he played with a handicap?

[Sverre]

@uberdude About the last example. By below the bar you mean he played with a handicap?

No, the meaning is related to the McMahon pairing system, and is in principle unrelated to handicap. In Go tournaments players are pre-seeded into different classes based on their ranks. This is done because Go games take much time so often there would not be time for a knockout match between all participating players (and because such a knockout match would start with several rather boring games before moving on to the "serious" rounds)

Essentially a 5 kyu starts with 3 more "virtual wins" than an 8 kyu. This is meant to ensure that players mostly get to play challenging even games (by being paired against other players with close to the same score), but it also means that an 8 kyu is unlikely to end up ahead of a 5 kyu in the final results, even if he wins more games.

This is not so bad for the lower-rated players, because they wouldn't really have a chance of winning the tournament anyway, but if the top players in a tournament are (for example) a 4 dan and a 3 dan then the 4 dan shouldn't start at an advantage. So for every tournament you select a "top group", consisting of the top several ranks, and these all start with the same score. Players below this bar start with fewer points, so it's harder or even impossible for them to win the tournament.

EDIT: also, as an anecdote about the prevalence of handicap games in tournaments: I play mostly in reduced-handicap tournaments (use handicap if the score difference is greater than 2), and in 130 tournament games I have played handicap games twice.

[shapenaji]

The other thing to keep in mind is that for most kyu and lower dan players, they don't really have a chance against the top field of a tournament, but you still want them to come and play.

So usually the way it works is that you have brackets.

Handicap allows the brackets to overlap, so that you don't run out of even ranked opponents. With 40 ranks available, if you have 60 people in a tournament, it will be common for people to have to play people at at least a 2 rank distance. Without handicap, nobody's rating would change. The stronger players are so favored to win that the test doesn't give you any useful information. Hence, at the end of the tournament, most ranks wouldn't move at all.

So if you want to have accurate ratings on players, you HAVE to use handicap sometimes.

At the top of the tournament, there is usually an open section. (everyone equal to or above 6 dan, or sometimes above 5 dan, and all even games). So the tournament winner doesn't get helped by handicap.

[RobertJasiek]

accurate ratings

Explain, what is this? :(

[speedchase]

I think he means relatively speaking

[shapenaji]

accurate ratings

Explain, what is this?

A game is a test of the ratings of 2 people.

If the game is a forgone conclusion, when the favored player wins, It is very difficult for me to reject the statistical hypothesis that the current ranks are accurate. As a result, I am not in a position to update the ratings confidently.

When I add handicap, and shift the winning probabilities to around 50-50, the test has a good deal more statistical weight.

[Uberdude]

@uberdude About the last example. By below the bar you mean he played with a handicap?

No, check that sensei's link to understand what the bar is. But essentially the bar in that tournament was 2d which means everyone 2 dan and above started on the same McMahon score of 1. A 1d starts at 0. A 1k starts at -1. A 2k starts at -2 etc. You can see that a few games were handicap (due to inability to pair people on the same McMahon score) in that results page I linked because they are red.

[NinG]

I just think it is kind of a personal thing if you like the system or not. Saying "you have to make handicap games, otherwise no one is having fun" doesn't convince me at all.

For example, when I played chess tournaments, I always looked forward to the games against stronger players, sometimes way stronger players. Those were the games I prepared hours if not days for, and those were the games I got the biggest motivation from. And because of the preparation and the huge motivation, I somehow played way better than normally. I always had at least a chance.

But it would kinda ruin it for me, if I received handicap. Because then I wouldn't try as hard as I normally would. I would go into the game saying "Oh well, it's 50-50 anyway" instead of "Alright, he is stronger than me, but I can do it, if I try my best! I have a chance!" And after the game, I would be a lot more motivated to become better and maintain that kind of skill level I showed against the strong opponent.

I'm trying to say, for me, it would probably get less competitive and less motivational to play a handicap game than to play a normal game, where chances are high that I lose. And that's exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to do.

But as I said, I think that's a personal thing. I've played a number of competitive games and sports so for me the idea of giving handicap to a weaker player just doesn't sound right.

However, it's not that I totally hate the handicap system. It does make sense somehow, at least for the weaker players in a tournament-field. It's just different from what I'm used to.

[illluck]

Yeah, I guess it's personal preference. I've found playing significantly weaker opponents (say, 5+ stones difference) without handicap to be sometimes boring if the game lasts too long.

Regarding the comment about always having at least a chance, I'd expect that the experience will not transfer to Go as easily (I suspect you probably already have some experience with that since you are 6k) - as Uberdude and others have stated, the strength range (in terms of number of strength differences that will result in, say, 90% winning chances for the stronger player) is much wider for Go.

[ez4u]

I just think it is kind of a personal thing if you like the system or not. Saying "you have to make handicap games, otherwise no one is having fun" doesn't convince me at all.

For example, when I played chess tournaments, I always looked forward to the games against stronger players, sometimes way stronger players. Those were the games I prepared hours if not days for, and those were the games I got the biggest motivation from. And because of the preparation and the huge motivation, I somehow played way better than normally. I always had at least a chance.

But it would kinda ruin it for me, if I received handicap. Because then I wouldn't try as hard as I normally would. I would go into the game saying "Oh well, it's 50-50 anyway" instead of "Alright, he is stronger than me, but I can do it, if I try my best! I have a chance!" And after the game, I would be a lot more motivated to become better and maintain that kind of skill level I showed against the strong opponent.

I'm trying to say, for me, it would probably get less competitive and less motivational to play a handicap game than to play a normal game, where chances are high that I lose. And that's exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to do.

But as I said, I think that's a personal thing. I've played a number of competitive games and sports so for me the idea of giving handicap to a weaker player just doesn't sound right.

However, it's not that I totally hate the handicap system. It does make sense somehow, at least for the weaker players in a tournament-field. It's just different from what I'm used to.

Isn't the point (made several times above), that the reason for handi's is to make the game interesting for both players? How much did you prepare for your games against much weaker players and how interesting did you find those games?

A constant issue in the ASR league is that weaker players find the mismatched games more interesting than the stronger players do. So the weaker players are against changes that will increase the stratification of the league based on strength while the stronger players are in favor.

The other game that I am familiar with that typically employs handicaps is golf. Of course there are amateur tournaments played without handicaps, but I dare say that the majority of club events are handicap. They are not for the purpose of finding the best player.

[RobertJasiek]

shapenaji, what defines, what you call, accurate ratings? How accurate? 1 rating point difference? What distinguishes accurate from not accurate? Why a one-dimensional value?

[shapenaji]

shapenaji, what defines, what you call, accurate ratings? How accurate? 1 rating point difference? What distinguishes accurate from not accurate? Why a one-dimensional value?

Ratings are an indicator of performance. If I am unable to update ratings because of the nature of the tournament, then they are a poor indicator of performance, and probably "inaccurate".

Do we really need to have this semantic argument?

[Boidhre]

A constant issue in the ASR league is that weaker players find the mismatched games more interesting than the stronger players do. So the weaker players are against changes that will increase the stratification of the league based on strength while the stronger players are in favor.

I would agree Delta is pretty unfair on the stronger players in it unless they get a real kick out of teaching games.