[pescetom]

paulg, on 2025-April-03, 01:21, said:

There is no adjustment of scores for a simultaneous pairs in the UK, that would effectively be a handicap competition. The EBU, SBU and WBU all prohibit awarding master points for handicapped events although you can earn master points for the scratch (unadjusted) scores.

I suspect my local club is typical for those who use handicaps occasionally: the unaltered scores for an evening earn master points, but the trophy associated with the evening is based on the handicapped results. Handicaps seem a lot more popular in Scotland than England from my experience.

I'm always encouraged when I see people applying handicaps in amateur sport to compensate some real disadvantage: old age, disability or whatever.
I particularly like the idea of long distance running races where the old people get a head start, alas only popular in Yugoslavia and Australia as far as I can gather.
I see no sense in applying handicaps to those who are simply better at the sport, all else being equal?

[helene_t]

We want to give the mere mortals a chance to win some prices once in a while. And if prices are given to partnerships rather than individuals, it is nice that people aren't penalized for playing with mere mortals.