( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_(go) , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_(chess) )
I mainly play Hex, so I would mainly be interested in this for Hex, but it could easily be done for some other games too.
Currently, although players can fairly-easily implement half-piece handicap on their own, larger handicaps require either
using an approximation, because this site does not allow passing (the handicap-giver puts a piece
somewhere that is "as close to useless as possible", but usually, all places are noticeably useful)
or
starting with a larger board and building a sub-board, like
http://www.trmph.com/hex/board#13,a12l1 ... 2l10k12l11
.
For 11x11 Hex, the main handicaps are:
half-piece handicap: The swap rule is not used and the handicap-receiver goes first.
1-piece handicap: The swap rule is used, and just after the swap-or-not decision, the
handicap-receiver places 1 piece, after which it is the same player's turn as if there was no handicap.
(1-epsilon)-piece handicap: like 1 piece handicap, but the handicap-giver chooses who places the swap piece
(1+epsilon)-piece handicap: like 1 piece handicap, but the handicap-receiver chooses who places the swap piece
I mainly play Hex, so I would mainly be interested in this for Hex, but it could easily be done for some other games too.
Currently, although players can fairly-easily implement half-piece handicap on their own, larger handicaps require either
using an approximation, because this site does not allow passing (the handicap-giver puts a piece
somewhere that is "as close to useless as possible", but usually, all places are noticeably useful)
or
starting with a larger board and building a sub-board, like
http://www.trmph.com/hex/board#13,a12l1 ... 2l10k12l11
.
For 11x11 Hex, the main handicaps are:
half-piece handicap: The swap rule is not used and the handicap-receiver goes first.
1-piece handicap: The swap rule is used, and just after the swap-or-not decision, the
handicap-receiver places 1 piece, after which it is the same player's turn as if there was no handicap.
(1-epsilon)-piece handicap: like 1 piece handicap, but the handicap-giver chooses who places the swap piece
(1+epsilon)-piece handicap: like 1 piece handicap, but the handicap-receiver chooses who places the swap piece