[4] 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".
[6] 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.
Matches between leading players attracted a wide following so masters often succeeded in finding sponsors to back their personal wagers.
"[8] 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.
[13] The playing of games at odds gradually grew rarer as the nineteenth century proceeded.
[14] Shibut posits that games played at material odds became unpopular for (1) technological, (2) political, and (3) philosophical reasons.
Third, chess began to be treated in a scientific, logical way, "with an assumption of idealized 'best play' [coming] to underpin all analysis".
[16][17] GM Larry Kaufman argued in 2024 that another factor was that chess became more popular and the standard of play rose, so that it was no longer reasonable to give piece odds to strong players.
[1] World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer often gave odds, as did IM Israel Albert Horowitz before him.
[1] In an interview with Ralph Ginzburg published in the January 1962 issue of Harper's Magazine, Bobby Fischer was quoted as saying that women were weak chessplayers and that he could successfully give knight odds to any woman in the world.
[22] Rybka, a top-rated computer chess engine designed by International Master Vasik Rajlich, played a series of handicap matches against strong human players.
[25] In June 2008, Rybka gave knight odds to FIDE Master John Meyer, losing 4–0.
[28][29] In 2015, Komodo (co-authored by Don Dailey and Larry Kaufman) defeated strong grandmasters at the f7-pawn handicap and rook (a1) for knight (b8), without losing a single game.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won at odds of exchange and pawn for knight, while the last "Knightmare" game (diagram) was drawn.
[31] Finally, in 2020, Komodo played a 6-game match against GM David Smerdon at knight odds.
[35] After upgrades to use a specialised network for chess handicaps, LeelaKnightOdds played a match (first to six wins) against GM Awonder Liang on 12 December 2024, alternating between the b1 and g1 knights.
He argues that if a master plays a weaker student for training, then the following options are available, and he finds the last one preferable:[1] The purpose of a handicap, or odds, is to compensate for the difference in skill between two chess players.
[51] Kaufman also points out that pawn and four moves is already problematic due to 1.e3 2.Bd3 3.Qg4 4.Nc3, and now Black is forced to give up the e-pawn and trade queens.
Money odds are another way of compensating for a difference in strength; the stronger player puts up some multiple (three, five, ten, etc.)
[58][59][60] This form of odds, along with pion coiffé, are very difficult for the odds-giver, who cannot allow the odds-receiver to sacrifice for the capped or ringed piece or pawn.
Staunton also mentioned the following unusual forms of odds not discussed by Carrera: Kaufman provides the following lines of pawn and move opening theory, analysed using Leela Chess Zero.
is better: 3...Bb4 4.Bd3 Nc6 5.e5 Qe7 6.Nf3 d5 7.0-0 gives White better development, a spatial advantage, and better king safety (Black will probably be unable to safely castle on either wing) in addition to his extra pawn.
Black has reduced his disadvantage to what it usually would be in normal chess, and thus should win given that the handicap implies a strength difference.
Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld call the conclusion "the finest finish in this type of contest."
[78][79][80][81] Isaac Kashdan vs. Buster Horneman, Manhattan Chess Club 1930 (remove White's queen rook) 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4.
Even the strongest players sometimes meet with disaster: Paul Morphy vs. Charles Maurian, Springhill 1855 (remove White's queen rook) 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3.
Nh6# 1–0[86] Max Lange vs. Jenny von Schierstedt, Halle 1856 (White's queen knight is the ringed piece with which he must checkmate) 1. e4 e5 2.
The latter method of practice engenders the habit on the part of the odds-receiver of exchanging pieces without any motive other than to reduce the forces.
By taking odds a players loses the opportunity to observe the finer points of play of his adversary who on account of his inferiority in force cannot always afford to adopt the best strategy and is more apt to resort to lines of play which he knows to be unsound, relying on the inability of the weaker player to perceive the correct reply.
This would be so for the weaker party, if only because correctness of development must needs be missing, the whole theory of the opening being distorted and disturbed; and it would be so, for the stronger party, if only because of the habit of speculative and unsound combination odds play so naturally induces—a habit which if once acquired is so difficult of rejection, and whose effects cannot fail to prove inconvenient to its subject, when confronted by a foeman entirely worthy of his steel, and calling for the full exercise of all his powers.