While reading up on the old Chicago Chess and Checker Club, I found several references to handicap tournaments – tournaments in which players were given handicaps (e.g., knight odds) against other players so that each game would be approximately even. This practice seems to have died out, but it would be interesting to know how they worked, if only for history’s sake. Does anyone have any idea (a) how the handicaps were calculated, and (b) how pairings were worked out (or whether they were typically just round-robins)? Can any correlation be drawn between piece handicaps and Elo ratings, the way stone handicaps correspond to rating differences in go?
We used to run time-odds tournaments at Game/5, but for each 100 points of ratings difference we subtracted 1 minute from the higher rated player and added it to the lower rated player, up to 9-1.
They were pretty competitive with those time odds.
I used to play 8-minute-to-2 blitz games against coworkers over lunch and it was a lot of fun.
I have thought for a while that a time handicap tournament would be pretty entertaining, though I was thinking an average of G/30 rather than G/5. I’ve seen some tables on the internet with suggested time ratios according to rating differences.
I’ve also seen rough correspondences of material handicap to rating difference, but any sort of handicap, time or material, probably matters less as the players get weaker. A pawn handicap makes a gigantic difference when two GMs play each other and probably hardly matters at all when two 1000s play each other.
When I went to college I was probably around 1200 strength. I played a number of games against an expert (and former master), he could give me queen odds and still crush me. I think it was because I had little or no knowledge of openings. The few times I beat him it was because I survived to the middlegame.
Before doing this, it is probably a good idea to consider what you’re going to do with delay. If you use a five second delay, a game where you have 58-2, say, can really be evened out, considering the over a thousand point rating difference you’d probably have.
Alex Relyea
Clocks that allow player A to have different increment or delay than player B offer some intriguing possibilities for handicap speed events.
One possibility using a base of Game/5 + 5 seconds increment:
For each 100 points in ratings difference, subtract 1 minute of time and 1 second of increment from the higher rated player and give it to the lower rated player, up to a maximum of 1 minute/1 second increment vs 9 minutes/9 seconds increment.
IIRC, Harkness may have covered this in The Official Chess Handbook and/or The Official Bluebook and Encyclopedia of Chess.
Perhaps I should clarify my question, as my topic heading was poorly worded: I didn’t mean to ask how you, the reader, would run a handicap tournament, but rather how handicap tournaments such as those of the CC&CC were run in the past (using material handicaps).
A couple decades back:
Rating difference:
0: toss for colors
1-200 points: stronger player gets black
201-400: stronger players gets black without an f-pawn (one such player automatically answered e4 with e5 and was in trouble after Qh5+)
401-600: stronger player gets white without the QN
601-800: stronger player gets white without the QR
801-1000: stronger player gets white without the Q
in the 201+ range, the stronger player scored better than 50%, but I don’t think it was as high as 60%.
Note that it is not USCF ratable.
No, I didn’t figure it would be.
That’s the trouble with asking about history. Everybody prefers to chime in with their own, more recent, experiences.
Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it, next semester, with the same professor.
Bill Smythe
I resign. 
Here are some “rules” on Odds Chess, from the Official Chess Handbook by Harkness. This seems to be the same set of rules in his earlier “Bluebook”.
In the '70s when I’d play my HS team’s weaker board players I had a self-imposed unofficial capped h-pawn. After a number of mates by the h-pawn finally one opponent sac’d a piece for it. I later drove his king to the h-file, pinned a piece to it, advanced my g-pawn, captured the piece, and then mated him with my new h-pawn.
High school boys can sometimes be a bit annoying.
I hope all realize that handicap events can’t be submitted for rating.
Ernie
Already stated and acknowledged earlier in the thread, but worth repeating.
I would think that an exception would be that draw odds could be submitted with the ACTUAL result rather than the odds result - though I can’t think of a reason why anyone would go to that much trouble.
I’d feel a lot better about doing that for Color odds (where both players still have the full gamut of potential outcomes) as opposed to Draw odds.
Selecting only a few games from the event, however, runs right up against USCF Rating Regulation 1: All games played in USCF rated events are rated. So, unless every game ended up not having any unacceptable odds, none of them can be rated.
I was probably unclear. Let me try again. In either case (draw odds or color odds) rate all the games. In the draw odds situation, for tournament SCORING purposes the higher rated player is scored as a loss if a draw occurs. For rating purposes report the game as a draw.
This really wouldn’t be different than, for example, running a team match with IHSA team scoring, but sending the games in for ratings.
At any rate, the effort expended in explaining this is likely greater than the likelihood that anyone would ever do it. 
Even that might be questionable.
The existence of draw odds could affect the rated result, not just the score result.
For example, suppose white’s position gives him an easy draw (e.g. by repetition), but all the alternatives leave him in an inferior position. Because of the draw odds he might choose one of the inferior continuations, hoping for complications that might give him a few practical winning chances.
If white loses, his rated result would be a loss, whereas without draw odds, he would have done the sensible thing and his rated result would have been a draw.
Draw odds change the very fabric of the game. It’s not all that far from submitting a Scrabble result as a rated chess game.
That about sums it up.
Bill Smythe