The purpose of odds is to change the conditions of a match between two players of widly differing strengths so that the weaker player has a better chance of winning. There are two types of odds available on the ICS: 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 (init+(2/3)increment) |
| 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 game, in which you will be white. For all of the odds games (except w10) the stronger player should get white. To see what wild 11 is, do "help wild11". This file also contains an offset added to White's rating for purposes of computing the rating changes caused by the game. In the case of w11, the offset is 300 - if White is 300 points stronger, then either player stands to gain the same amount by winning. See the help files wild10 through wild14 for the rest of the material odds games.
See also: match