Hello 
It happens very often that players cancel a game because it happens to include handicap stones, and they don’t like that.
I think the “default” setting when automatically searching for a game (play against humans) should be “Handicap disabled” rather than the current “Standard handicap,” because people who don’t like handicap games never think to change this setting.
What do you think?
This change would reduce the pool of players available to match against beginners. Apparently it can already take a while for beginners to find a match.
What you propose is how it used to work, and it was changed on purpose after much debate which you may be able to find by searching the forums. I think handicap should be on by default, and OGS had a negative effect on the western go community by having it off by default for many years causing people to not like handicaps, and we should aim to rectify not continue that damage.
I consider ( 19x19_with_handicap_stones as different game compared to 19x19_even ) as ( 13x13 compared to 19x19 )
Both Chess and Go are games, but they are different games. Chess will not replace Go for me.
19x19_with_handicap_stones will not replace 19x19_even. It’s not possible to properly build my Square Fuseki when there are handicap stones around.
I don’t remember what is the usual handicap setting, but personally I use ±3 stones and people rarely cancel.
I’d be surprised if you polled people and their reason for not liking handicaps was because it wasn’t the default automatch setting.
You can’t force people to take handicap stones, and you can’t force people to like them, default or not.
Culture is influenced in subtle ways. While you can’t force someone to like handicap, you can introduce novices to handicap early and they will think it’s the natural way to play.
Not necessarily, unless you mean children.
Plenty of adults learning the game want to play an even game with you, and prefer it, even if they’re a beginner and you’ve been playing for a decade.
You can refuse to play with them without handicap, but I wouldn’t call that good for the culture either.
It might work to teach younger players that a teacher gives handicap to a student, but it doesn’t always work with adult players and learners.
An adult who is introduced to the game with handicap as default is more likely to accept handicap than an adult who is introduced to the game with no handicap as adult.
Yep, ask a chess player to take handicap and see how often he will refuse.
The culture of handicap games is still to be developed in the western go world (as a way to have more fun and have a better learning of some fondamentals)
Do you mean in person or online @benjito ?
I don’t really think the default of handicap on or off in automatch makes a difference to whether people like it or not.
I do think defaults have inertia to them, so there might be more handicap games played (e.g. 1-3 handicap stones) if the default is set to handicap on.
But I don’t think having it off, is the reason people don’t like handicap.
People express many reasons: they want to learn the opening without handicap, they don’t want to be given an advantage at the start, they don’t learn the game as well with handicap because it changes how people play etc.
But I’m not sure I believe that for in person teaching. As above, people have their own opinions on if they like when you take it easy on them, or whether they’re given an advantage to start with, or you allow them take backs, and similar other things.
I don’t really believe I should force an opinion on them if they disagree with taking handicap, whether I introduce it first or not. Similarly to trying to make beginners play capture (Atari) go first.
There are a couple of people I play with regularly that take handicap stones, that have stuck around and improved, and take less stones over time.
But there’s others that prefer to play even games, and I don’t want to push handicap on them.
I don’t have any sense that people are more likely to accept handicap if I make them play with handicap to begin with. For some people they’re probably just as likely to not come back if you don’t give them a choice.
I would very much believe that a higher proportion of people would like or dislike handicap stones based on
than
We will probably have to agree to disagree, but I think it’s much like Japanese vs Chinese scoring. There are some pros and cons to each; some people may choose their preference based on some higher level reason. However, the vast majority simply plays the system that was prevalent in their learning environment.
It would be better if we agreed whether we’re even discussing the same thing.
I think I’m agreeing with you that having a default impacts the number of people doing whatever the default is (eg your Japanese vs Chinese rules)
But I’m disagreeing with what I quoted originally, that that’s the reason people like or dislike handicap.
Do people dislike Chinese rules because it’s not the OGS default do you think, generally speaking?
OGS has had a negative effect on the western go community because we didn’t offer handicap as a default. Even more so, not having it as default caused people to not like handicaps.
Beginners don’t see or believe how playing on even with an experimented player is like a game between a cat and a mouse. And how with handicap it becomes something expending in a full time of the game with possibilities to achieve something.
Perhaps dislike is too strong a word, but yes. The people I know who learned Chinese prefer to use Chinese-style rules. The people I know who learned Japanese rules largely prefer Japanese-style rules.
I believe you are claiming this can be attributed to self-selection (e.g. “a Chinese person with a natural affinity to Japanese rules would simply stop playing Go”). I am claiming that a beginner is a relatively blank slate and is likely to accept the prevailing system.
Well now I’m confused 
are you summarizing @Uberdude, or are you agreeing with him?
I’m emphasising what I’m disagreeing with, that a certain default causes dislike of things that are not the default.
Are the default stones and themes likely to cause dislike for all of the other themes?
It’s not the same as with Go rules, true, since it’s much simpler.
When you introduce people to multiple rulesets it also tends to cause confusion, until people are committed to playing long enough, that they can decide what they prefer. I wouldn’t say exposure like that would help.
But I also wouldn’t confuse “learned to play with X rules” with “likes rules X and hence dislikes rules Y”. The hence is important, since again, with the handicap comparison, I’m not really believing that a certain default is causing dislike for the alternative.
Japanese rules and scoring are very practical, especially for 19x19 games.
But they have some drawbacks, like not being able to resolve life and death during the game without losing points.
Preferring to play Chinese rules online is also different to preferring to play them in person. When the computer or app is doing all the counting for you, and most games don’t really make any difference whether they’re being played with either ruleset, it’s probably as likely to be
as “it’s just what I learned with”.
People can prefer one ruleset for aesthetic reasons, New Zealand rules allow suicide moves, counting both stones and territory (area) is more natural etc.
I would expect the high level reasons to be why you would dislike an alternative, unless of course you just tend to dislike anything that isn’t just the way you learned originally (“you” being a generic player who is learning Go for the first time).
Or is that the crux?
Do we (or @benjito) generally expect the average new player to dislike anything they’re not shown originally.
The average player is much more likely to dislike handicap if they never played with handicap before, and they’ll dislike Fischer settings if they learned with byoyomi, dislike Chinese rules if learned with Japanese rules?
I think we have to use the word dislike, at least to compare it to the original comment, since I’m feeling that the OGS default “caused” players to dislike handicap didn’t really seem that reasonable. Interested in your take benjito.
I could be wrong.
The original quote was “not like” not “dislike” right? It’s subtle, but worth pointing out if we’re going to make a distinction between “like” and “prefer”.
To be clear, I know it’s possible to develop preferences that differ from what you are introduced to originally. However, all else being equal, people will lean toward the system they started with.
Players who dislike handicap would probably attribute it to something like honor or propriety or purity, but I think such ideas are much less likely to stick if everybody and their grandma is playing handicap. That’s where the default becomes influential.
