ICC Help: odds-games

The purpose of odds is to change the conditions of a match between two players of widely differing strengths so that the weaker player has a better chance of winning. There are two types of odds available on the ICC: time odds, and material odds. In a time-odds game, the two players have different amounts of time. In a material-odds game, the two players start with different sets of pieces.

A TIME-ODDS challenge is made by adding additional numbers to the match command. For example if you typed:

match Darooha 1 4 2 12

you would start with 1 minute (and have a 4 second increment), and Darooha would start with 2 minutes (with 12 second increment). You would only want to do this if you were much better than Darooha! All time odds games are unrated.

Suggested time odds for 0 increment games, based on rating-point differences between the two players are:

Rating Point Spread Time in minutes 0 5 versus 5 200 4 versus 6 400 3 versus 7 600 2 versus 8 800 1 versus 10

A MATERIAL-ODDS challenge is made by specifying a wild designator (such as "w10") in the match command. (This must appear in the command somewhere after the name of the opponent.) The color you desire may also be specified. For example:

match Darooha w11 white

issues a challenge to Darooha for a wild 11 (knight odds) game, in which you will be white. For all of the odds games (except w10) the stronger player should get white. Wild 10, 11, 12, 13, are pawn, knight, rook and queen odds, respectively. Wild 14 is a variation of rook odds.

See also: match, wild, wild10, wild11, wild12, wild13, wild14