Handicaps (or "odds") in chess are handicapping variants which enable a weaker player to have a chance of winning against a stronger one. There are a variety of such handicaps, such as odds (the stronger player surrenders a certain piece or pieces), extra moves (the weaker player has an agreed number of moves at the beginning of the game), extra time on the chess clock, and special conditions (such as requiring the odds-giver to deliver checkmate with a specified piece or pawn). Various permutations of these, such as "pawn and two moves", are also possible.
Handicaps were quite popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, when chess was often played for money stakes, in order to induce weaker players to play for wagers. Today handicaps are rarely seen in serious competition outside of human–computer chess matches. As chess engines have been routinely superior to even chess masters since the late 20th century, human players need considerable odds to have practical chances in such matches.
History
According to Harry Golombek, "Odds-giving reached its heyday in the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century." Indeed, it was so prevalent in the 18th century that Philidor (1726–1795) played the vast majority of his games at odds. About fifteen percent of the known games of Paul Morphy (1837–1884) are games in which he gave odds.
Howard Staunton in The Chess-Player's Handbook (1847) advised inexperienced players to accept odds offered by superior players and, upon improving to the point that they can themselves give odds to some players, to avoid playing such players on even terms, warning that doing so is apt to induce "an indolent, neglectful habit of play". In 1849, Staunton published The Chess-Player's Companion, a 510-page work "chiefly directed to the exposition of openings where one party gives odds". Just over 300 pages were devoted to odds games: Book I (pages 1 to 185) contained games played at various odds, and most of Book V (pages 380–496) discussed various types of odds, including exotic and unusual ones. The late-19th century chess opening treatise Chess Openings Ancient and Modern, by Edward Freeborough and Charles Ranken, included fourteen pages of analysis of best play in games played at odds of pawn and move, pawn and two moves, and either knight.
Macon Shibut writes that in the mid-19th century "chess was a gambling game ... . Individual matches for stakes were the focus of organized play. Matches between leading players attracted a wide following so masters often succeeded in finding sponsors to back their personal wagers." However, the available sums were generally relatively meager, and travel was arduous, so the amount of money obtained in this way was not sufficient to enable professional chess players to support themselves financially. Moreover, the first major chess tournament was not organized until 1851, and chess tournaments remained a rarity for several decades following. With tournaments an unreliable means of making a living, odds-giving became a way for masters to entice amateurs into playing for wagers, since the odds gave the amateur a fighting chance. The odds system even became the earliest rating system: amateurs were graded according to what handicap they needed to compete against a master, and were referred to as a "Rook player" or "Pawn and move player", for example, as many people would today speak of players by their Elo ratings (e.g. a "1200 player" or an "1800 player").
The playing of games at odds gradually grew rarer as the nineteenth century proceeded. Today, except for time odds, they have all but disappeared. Shibut posits that games played at material odds became unpopular for (1) technological, (2) political, and (3) philosophical reasons. Taking these in turn, first, the introduction of chess clocks gave rise to a new way to give odds, one that has today supplanted material odds as the preferred mode of odds-giving. Second, the Soviet Union supported chess masters and sponsored chess education, but expected chess masters "to be cultural icons, not hustlers". Third, chess began to be treated in a scientific, logical way, "with an assumption of idealized 'best play' [coming] to underpin all analysis". From this perspective, a game beginning from a "lost" position becomes less interesting, even distasteful. Writings by Wilhelm Steinitz (1836–1900), the first World Champion, and James Mason (1849–1905) are consistent with the last point.