HANDICAP CHESS, in which the stronger player usually removes one or more chessmen at the start of the game, was very popular up until the late 1800s, but gradually went out of fashion due to the rising level of play. Also the advent of chess clocks created the alternative of time odds, which became the normal method of equalizing chances in fast play. Material odds gradually went from a serious form of play used in tournaments and matches to something mostly used to teach kids or to get amateurs to play masters for money. Most of the recorded games of Philidor, the top player in the late 1700s, a substantial portion of the recorded games of Staunton and Morphy, the top players of the 1840s and late 1850s respectively, and at least one 12-game match by Steinitz, the top player in the later 1800s, were all handicap games. But after Steinitz most of the world champions had at most one or two handicap games on record, almost none after World War II. Bobby Fischer is known to have played hundreds of material-handicap games, but none were recorded to my knowledge. Garry Kasparov did play one four-game handicap match giving two pawns (“a” pawn plus another) to a British player (Terry Chapman, now a FIDE master) thought to be around US Chess 2200 level at the time, winning 21


/2 to 11 /2 . ~GM Larry Kaufman


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