Not that long ago I was challenged to a 9x9 game by a new person on the site and surprised to find myself facing a handicap. (Obviously, I should have read the challenge better!).
At the time I thought “do people really play 9x9 with handicap?”.
This topic has come up again in a recent thread about handicaps and TPK play, where I guess 9x9 is the most common size.
Do people really use handicap much in 9x9 play?
Do we expect 1 stone of handicap on a 9x9 board to equal one stone of rank?
Yes and no. I agree with your implied point. I doubt that handicapping makes much sense in 9x9, generally speaking, and we certainly have no reliable way to gauge its effect (and as I have stated many times, I believe that komi and handicap stones are both really sliding scales in their significance, because a strong player can make more use of them than a weak player).
On the other hand, handicap stones may be useful for absolute beginners. When I began playing again with my local group—after 40 years away from the game—I was given 5 stones in my first game (of 9x9, which I had never even heard of 40+ years ago). I lost, making all the possible basic mistakes in that one game. We have introduced a couple of kids (early elementary school, maybe 7 or 8 years old) to go at the club, and similarly used 5 stones. Nothing scientific in this. Just a guess.
You just gave us a great idea for a tournament here.
As far as I’m aware no one is playing handicap on 9x9 except for the handicap of 1 because some feel komi should be less.
I played some auto handi games in the past and just now. Naturally, 9x9 handicap should be less in actual stones on the board [senseis]. On OGS I’d say it’s not unreasonable. I’m not sure how handicap calculation works but against 25k it gave them only 6 stones. But I feel like if your opponent is ~10k and you have to give them 2-3 stones it’s too hard because at that point players become too smart.
I have been in a few 9x9 handicap tournaments, and what I noticed was that whenever my opponent starts with 2 stones down, I lose. I usually win in the games I start with 3.5 komi and my opponent doesn’t have any stones. It is definitely something that will happen in beginners tournaments and I now have to look out for that before I join so I don’t have to play matches like that again. Of course most of them are multi rounds, and I went up a few ranks recently, so if I have to give 3 stones to someone for the first time😶not looking forward to it.
I play 9x9 with handicap a lot. Works perfectly fine. And why wouldn’t it?
How the handicaps stones on 9x9 should relate to the ratings and to 19x19 handicap stones is a different question. But so far (admittedly only few games that led to reduced komi, no real handicap) what I saw here on OGS was in the right range.
I guess it depends what you mean by “works”.
Clearly placing additional stones for weaker players will give them assistance.
I’ve realised that my question is specifically whether 1 stone in 9x9 is worth 1 rank.
I don’t see how it can be, because 1 stone is worth 1 rank in 19x19, and yet 1 stone seems to me to be much more powerful in 9x9…
Or is this already taken into account in the matching and handicap calculation - do you get less stones of handicap per rank in 9x9?
Of course! Yes, here on OGS you get less than 1 stone per rank.
I (around 8k) have given total beginners up to 6 stones on 9x9 in their first game. For opponents around 25k-30k 3 stones seem to work well enough to get close games for me.
One stone in 9x9 is obviously far more than one rank, if you’re talking about actual practical play. Think about the reasons for why players would be different ranks. 
For a well-calibrated ranking system, when a correctly-ranked 9k plays a correctly-ranked 10k on a 19x19 board the reason why the 9k can have an even game when playing one stone down (e.g. reverse komi, or a 2H game but where white gets 7.5 komi - both of these are 1 stone total of disadvantage) is not because there is an intrinsic magic “one stone betterness” about the 9k compared to the 10k.
Rather, it’s because on average, across many games and many different situations, the 9k makes slightly fewer or slightly less bad mistakes. Since Go is a pretty long game and even pros make dozens of mistakes per game, there’s lots of time and lots of separate mistakes to add up, so it turns out actually that a not too bad model is to say that players randomly may lose a certain amount of advantage each time they have to make a decision - i.e. each move, which adds up to a certain average amount per move.
Then, what determines the 1 stone difference is simply that the average amount that a 9k loses per move, summed across the whole game, is about 1 stone less than the average amount that a 10k loses per move, summed across the whole game.
A 9x9 game lasts for only about a quarter of the length, so that’s only a quarter of the moves to add up, so the average might only be a quarter of the 19x19 average. Therefore on 9x9, with this super crude baseline we might predict 1 stone to be about 4 to 5 ranks difference. And on 13x13, we might predict 1 stone to be about 2 ranks difference.
This model is horribly wrong in many ways. But it’s still far more accurate than saying that 1 rank is 1 stone regardless of board size. And it’s not entirely off the mark. If you play with 4H on 13x13, it does feels pretty close to a 8H or 9H game on 19x19. On 9x9 it breaks down a bit more due to the very different nature of that size and different styles of play and so on, but depending on the players, in practice 1 stone per 4 to 6 ranks is about right.
Thank you for posting this. I’m pleasantly surprised that it matches fairly well with the handicap tables that I use in my children’s club: http://goratings.eu/content/voorgift-tabel.v6.pdf
It has 3 stones handicap between 8k and 26k-21k and it has 6 stones handicap between 8k and total novice (42k in my table).
It is based on one handicap stone per 6 ranks difference.
In more detail (without komi and substracting half a stone correction to compensate for that): handicap = round(1 + rankdiff / 6 - 0.5).
Bringing this one up from way back in the past. I recently started a Ranked auto-Handicapped 9x9 game against somebody 12 ranks higher than me. Below the start position after the first two moves (komi +2.5). How is this fair to to them? Even as a newbie I feel all I have to do is defend well and the game is mine to lose, there is just too much influence. 3 stones seems like a big advantage on 9x9. shouldn’t there be a max stone handicap based on board size then trade off Komi?
Just played this game with a rank gap of 12 and three stones, that seems to be about right to create a challenging game for both players: 9x9 NO LIMIT
Ok, so I want to be cautious in my analysis here as I’ve only been playing for couple of months, but why on move 2 doesn’t black just play E5 and take the center. From there any invasion looks complicated. Plus, there was no response to the G5 invasion on move 5, I might have played F5 to try and capture. I’d appreciate being enlightened because I’m sure there is plenty I’m missing.
The only way to know for sure is to play a bunch of games with that handicap and rank difference and see if it’s roughly 50/50.
3 stones is a lot, but so is 12 ranks!
I can’t speak for Mr. Seebah but sometimes it works better to have stronger concentrated groups rather than spread out evenly.
Playing against a lot of handicap stones you feel like you’re under the gun all game (or until a decisive moment), trying to play your best, but also slightly ‘overplaying’.
Playing with a lot of handicap stones you feel under pressure not to make the mistake! and also some apprehension because your opponent can tactically outplay you in ways you don’t understand.
Hence there can be a psychological aspect, where the player with the extra stones fears playing enclosures or attacks which would otherwise seem normal, and instead opts for safer options to cut against the tactical mismatch.
I give beginners HC on 9x9 all the time 
I’ve even given 9 stones on 9x9 to “bloody” beginners, the only reason being to have them enjoy the gratification of a victory … and of course we reduce HC after every victory, and later on (say, when we reach a HC of five stones) after two victories.
@trohde so what you’re saying is that you’re only toying with me and now you’re going to bring the pain? Just when I was starting to get confident…
I’m afraid I don’t understand … I’m not “toying” with you or anyone – we’re PLAYING, and playing GO, right? 
The idea of starting with a HC that’s slightly too much is that the weaker opponent should experience victories also, should experience the gratification of a victory, and when winning twice in a row, to slowly reduce the Handicap in order to make it just a little more difficult for the weaker opponent, so as to adjust to them learning and getting stronger. (Accordingly, if you lose twice in a row, you get one stone more again.)
This is a technique that I have learned in Go clubs, from players stronger than me.
Makes sense when you put it like that, thanks. I guess I’ve got a distorted view from all those chess games I used to play against my dad where he would repeatedly and mercilessly crush me while saying it was the best way to learn.
Interesting. My late father did the same with me when I was young 
He was really competitive throughout his life, and it was difficult for him to leave that behind … when later I beat him at chess, he quit playing and gifted me his old board and stones.
Same with Go: even though he brought the game into the family in the early 1960s (and no-one played with him after being crushed a few times without understanding a thing) … when, a few decades later, I learned Go, he didn’t want to play with me.
But at least we became real close friends in the last five years of his life … he died in 1988, aged 59. Still miss him.
My condolences. That’s bit early, I understand your pain.
I have met the merciless attitude but that’s something I learned with teaching go: it’s far from being the right attitude, even in terms of efficiency.
In a 9 stones handicap the estimation given by some pros is 60% defense and 40% attack. You can’t stop using attack in fact.
On 9x9 HC games where the handicap is even more heavy on white IMHO simply connecting your stones could be enough for a win.
