Life In 19x19

I think that calling weaker players lazy is a bit rude, you probably wanted a different adjective there.
If you're going to have a handicap tournament, it is rather suspicious if you're making it too biased towards strong players. What's the point of that exactly, when you could have an open event and a handicap event running at the same time.

If a stronger player is lazy, he can also lose. Much more commonly though, laziness is found among weaker players. Once more, I have NOT said that weaker equals lazy. Quite differently, for decades I have described that weaker (Black) players in handicap games have good winning chances if they are NOT lazy.

E.g. in the 2024 9x9, the 1d woman won her semi-final so convincingly that the 4d opponent jested to the 7d finalist that he would not have the slightest chance. She would have won the final if she replied correctly to a trick invasion, i.e., she made just one mistake too many. She is the type of player I have described as playing with great determination. She did not need a larger handicap but only a bit more self-control in her decision-making. Larger handicaps would destroy these great games, shich are a great joy to watch or sometimes - if one has qualified - play, in favour of Black's unpenalised laziness.

The 9x9 tournament used 1 full stone every 7 ranks, maybe it was a bit easier for Black than the 13x13 tournament which used 1 full stone every 4 ranks. (Edit: actually perhaps not; among matches where the two players had different ranks, Black's winrate was only 20%.)

But anyway, how do you know if a mistake is due to laziness or to lack of reading ability?

jlt wrote:the 13x13 tournament which used 1 full stone every 4 ranks.

Which was tougher than my suggested every 5 ranks (and 8.5 even game komi, from which to modify handicaps).

how do you know if a mistake is due to laziness or to lack of reading ability?

By observing the player's play and time, and comparing to my experience with, or observation of, the player's previously shown skill (in particular, earlier during the same game) and the player's, my and everybody's mistakes.