Yup, makes sense. There’s already a GitHub issue tracking that request; see the list that @yebellz posted above.
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What would it mean to have a ladder with handicap enabled? With automatic handicap, all games should be ~even so to be at the top you would just have to play the most games on the ladder?
I think it would boil down to whoever performs better than expected, relative to their rank, in the context of handicap games. Perhaps, it may given an inherent advantage to players that are under ranked, which isn’t ideal, but hopefully the ranking system will self-correct over time and with more games played. Eventually, it should hard to hold onto the top spot, as continuing to win a lot of games will eventually push that player’s rank up until they no longer get enough handicap.
Of course, it’s possible that a player may deliberately sandbag to lower their rank in order to gain advantage in a handicap ladder, but if that happens, it should be reported to and addressed by the moderators.
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What would it even mean to have a no handicap ladder? You’d just expect the highest ranked players to be on top, which is kind of a boring result. With handicap it should be a lot more exciting 
And if nothing else it’s a great way to generate a ton of high-handicap games between dedicated players.
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Maybe this has been discussed elsewhere, but I don’t know…
Is there an upper limit on the number of handicap stones for various rulesets? Japanese rules has fixed placements, which traditionally max out at 9. Does OGS also max out at 9 handicap stones for Japanese rules, or are additional stones given somehow, if the rank difference is greater than 9?
Under other rulesets, I believe just more free placement stones are given, if needed, right?
If handicap stones max out at 9, and there is a large rank disparity across the participants, then a handicap ladder would give an advantage to the highest ranked players.
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Yeah it’s just a list of players where you weakly sort the list by rating and by who has played the most games 
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Don’t neglect the subtle art of challenging those that seem to be inactive and more likely to time out!
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Isn’t that just doing a public service by cleaning up the ladder?
Haha right… I guess I thought that being at the top spot on the ladder would mean you’re kind of the best player (of that ladder). But fair enough, at the end of day it’s just another excuse to challenge someone for a game.
And I suppose people will have very different abilities in using/countering handicap stones. So except for naturally even games, the top person of a handicap ladder might be a 10k who’s really good at making use of the 9 stones they get. Especially as handicaps haven’t been super popular on ogs in the past.
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