Self Handicap
Summary:
Handicap go is the ability to overcome the handicap set in your mind against any strength of opponent. The stronger the opponent the harder you have to play.
There has been some interest in this but has never really been documented in the past (from my current research). We never really know if someone does this or not. It would be very rude to tell your opponent you did do this at the end of the game, no matter what the outcome is. A thread on rec.games.go was started on this topic by me, and had some interesting topics come up. Reverse Komi was the best way to do a self handicap.
This is great practice and will change the way you look at a goban forever.
Sometimes the board does not seem as large as it used to.
Why would someone set a handicap against a stronger player?
It is great practice to a way to improve your own skills. You start seeing things that you have never seen before on the go board.
Reverse Komi:
Before you start a game, the rules you choose for a game will let you know how the handicap should go. I usually set about 3 stones above my ability.
Me 8kyu: white Opponent 15kyu: black Handicap: 6 Komi: .5 Mental Komi: -15.5
This can also work against stronger opponents, although do expect results to vary every game.
Me 8kyu: white Opponent 5kyu: black Handicap: 0 Komi: 5.5 Mental Komi: -10.5
Preset Win:
Decide before the game starts how much you want to win/lose by and attain that outcome.
Most common is on handicap or even games to always win by .5 Komi.
One Colour Go:
On some go clients you can change to stone graphics yourself. The idea here is to change the stones so they all either all white or all black. Conventional one colour go is all white. Your opponent would never know you are playing with only one colour and it will help with your memory.
Alex: I fail to see the point of this. Alternate handicap systems are fine, but if you want to make the game more difficult for yourself, why not tell your opponent about your special rules instead of keeping them in your head? What's the point of playing a game if your opponent is not playing the same game? If it's rude to tell your opponent that you did this after the game, is doing it secretly any less rude? This all just sounds to me like a means of justifying sandbagging or avoiding learning how to play effectively as White in a high handicap game.