Life In 19x19

My last 12 games on KGS have all been won by white. Finally I am about to break the chain and win the 13th one as black... and my opponent escapes.

Because statistically, that will happen sometimes.

The probability of this may be improved by, for instance, playing mostly against weaker players whilst slightly underranked, or perhaps by playing black in handicap games.

I'm sorry for bumping this thread back up, but I just don't understand something. If the OP is losing a lot of games against opponents who use white than shouldn't the advice be to just get stronger so you can beat opponents who use white? I don't really understand the advice that amnal gave. Sorry again.

I don't really understand the advice that amnal gave.

It wasn't advice, just an observation. Even if everyone is perfectly ranked at discrete points on a grade scale such that every game has a 50% probability of white winning, some people will sometimes observe 12 white wins in a row.

The probability of this happening may be higher than it looks if the player fulfils certain conditions. For instance, white probably has an advantage in a handicap game with 'normal' handicap, so if the OP plays many such games they might expect a large proportion of white wins. Likewise, if the OP is himself underranked but prefers to play as white, the effect would again be made unexpectedly likely.

Huh, that's interesting. But wait, how would white have an advantage in a handicap game between two players of the same strength?

Normally, the difference between a handicap is playing one extra stone. So the second handicap is starting with two stones. The third is three.

Now, consider an even game. Suppose you want to handicap it by one stone. You could

(1) Give Black two starting stones but have him give White komi, or
(2) The other way would be to give White the first move, but have him continue to receive komi. (And then you could switch, so the player who is receiving the handicap plays Black, with first move and negative komi).

It's obvious that each of those is equivalent to giving one player an extra move. But it's also obvious that (2) is better for the handicapped player than no komi.

What this ends up meaning is that the no komi handicap is actually a half-stone handicap. A "two stone" handicap is a 1.5 stone handicap, and then 2.5, 3.5...