So - I noticed an unfortunate consequence of entering tournaments recently. I was feeling pretty happy about my rank reaching 20k - A minor jump I know, but I can still remember when it seemed an unreachable goal. Anyway I was feeling pretty pleased about this, then a couple of bad things happened. First off I got wiped off the board by a 25k player who was probably quite a bit stronger, and then I entered a tournament and found that I was the weakest player in it. Since very few players on here seem to give handicap stones, it meant, in effect that I was spared the trouble of actually playing. I did play, and I got to watch my stones get surrounded, blocked and ultimately eaten, in ways that I will no doubt learn a lot from once I get around to studying the games, but the net result was that I got trashed and was back down to 23k faster than you can say “sandbag”
I was fortunate enough to run into a group of players near me, back when I still had a home made of bricks, and I played a game with a guy who gave me nine stones. When I said I was happy to play him without them, he made the point that those stones were for his benefit too. “I want an interesting game as well” were his exact words. I have to say I took those words to heart and when I put a challenge out I always enable handicaps. Which makes for a hilarious time when I inadvertently give a sandbagger three or four stones…
Anyway, my point is this. Why are handicap stones shunned so much on this site? After all they exist for a reason. I can’t believe it’s because people are so in love with winning that they’ll take an easy win against a weaker opponent over a slightly more challenging game. One game I played recently against a player who was four stones stronger than me started with an exclamation of dismay when they saw the handicap stones, but they still won by a comfortable margin, and because they had to think harder about their play, I had to think harder too. When your stones are just being hoovered off the board, it’s hard to play your best game
So yeah - what’s the deal with handicaps on here? Why are they so uncommon? I will say though that it’s taught me not to get too precious about my ranking. Since about 90% of the people on this site are stronger than me I just have to accept that it’s going to go down more than it goes up until I start making major improvement. Roll on that day…