I just accepted a game with a player 2 ranks below me, and it gave him a 7-stone handicap! This isn’t the first time I’ve faced a player with several stones too many handicap. Why does this happen?
I have a theory on this, but no official confirmation of it:
Thanks for the reply!
Here’s the game I created the thread about: https://online-go.com/game/11074667 I was 4k, my opponent 6k. In both overall rank and 19x19 blitz rank, my opponent is about 90 points below me, but the 7-stone handicap was way too much. Two stones would have been appropriate.
Reading your opponents comment it seems he manually set the handicap to 7 stones and you accepted that game. If that’s true it has nothing to do with how OGS works. (Well, one could of course discuss if manually set handicaps should be more obvious.)
Yup, it says in the game information that the handicap was set to 7. It’s just something you need to check before you agree to the game I guess.
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Also remember you can cancel (and annul) a game before playing any moves. So if you see 7 stones on the board just press cancel 
Or be polite and explain in chat first
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Thanks all, that makes sense.
Presumably the game will have been rated as if it was against a much stronger opponent and I’m sure you learnt something too, so it’s all good 
Maybe try a different opening.