The Theory of Handicapping – Ted Stamp

A handicap system is designed to reward a team that does better than expected in the match about to be played. Then:

·         If a team does worse than expected it will lose.

·         If a team does as expected, it will draw.

·         If a team does better than expected it will win.

·         It is obviously essential to have an expected score.

The handicapper (or the set of rules which replace him) predicts the score of each board separately and hence the match score if played in the normal manner. He then gives the lesser team the exact start necessary to make the expected result a draw. Note that he predicts the score and then gives the start, not the other way around. To predict the score of a chess match he must predict each board separately, and there are only three possibilities for each board, namely 1-0, 0-1 and Draw.

The current arrangement makes no attempt to predict the score on any board and for that reason alone however sophisticated it may appear it is not applicable to a chess match and is not a handicap system. Before the match starts you should have a score sheet giving the predicted score for each board, each team’s total, and the start necessary to make the expected result a draw.

Prior to the EGM an example was given where one team had starts of 0.4, 0.2 and 0.2 The other team also had a start of 0.2 which meant a team start of 0.6 and this was rounded up to 1. However, that is an increase of 0.4 which is two thirds of the original 0.6 and also equal to the highest start on any board which means it is significant. It is different from rounding up 99.9 to 100. It also means team starts of 0.6, 0.8, 1, 1.2, and 1.4 all finish up with 1 point start.

There are serious errors in the way defaulted boards are treated; If you look at the match between St Andrews and East Hull B in 4 board Div 2 on 2nd Dec you will see that E Hull defaulted on board 1. So, St Andrews won that board 1-0 but also got 0.8 start via the handicap calculation making a total of 1.8 from one board.

However, it could have been much worse. If St Andrews had defaulted E Hull would have won that board 1-0 but as the rules stand St Andrews would still have got 0.8 start despite not having anybody on the board at all. Everybody knows that when a board is defaulted there is no play at all on that board and the system should reflect that. So, the board should be awarded 1-0 to the non-offending team but not play any part in the calculation of the handicap. Any start given to either team on that board should be cancelled. So, for example a 4-board match with one default would become a 3-board match plus 1 point penalty for the default. It would also mean that default values would be redundant.

When a 4-board cup match has ended in a draw and the tie break has still left a draw the rules say “the side with the handicap should progress. “. However, I am not sure that was what was intended. If one team has a start the team with the handicap is their opponents. They have the handicap of starting the match knowing that their opponents have a start on them, and they have to catch up.

There is also an error in the use of board count to decide the winner of a 6-board cup match which has ended in a draw (Rule 3.7). Board count was designed to split a tie when a match ended in a draw in a competition with no handicapping whatsoever. The match having ended in a draw meant that each team had won the same number of boards, and the idea was to decide which team had won the more important boards. But if one team has had a start this no longer applies. For example, if one team has had a start of 2 and the match has ended in a draw then the other team has won 2 more boards than they have and would have 2 more boards more on its list of winning boards which invalidates the logic.

If you have any questions or comments do not hesitate to contact me.