When I play a match against a 6 (and I'm a 16) the negociation generally results in about eight stokes. Maybe 7 strokes if it's my home course and not his. And sure enough, I will win about as often as the other guy. Now if you go full 100% handicap difference in match play that's usually a slight edge for the guy getting the strokes. But somewhere around 3/4 of the difference seems to give 50/50 chances more or less.
Brent
I haven't inspected the data, but maybe 5-10 years ago CONGU switched from 3/4 handicap in matchplay to full handicap difference. The reason being low cappers were winning a higher percentage (don't know the percentage) of matches than thought reasonable given they were handicapped matches.
Unless there are extenuating circumstances, I very rarely see guys trying to grab more strokes in a match than allowed by CONGU. It doesn't make much sense to have a handicapping system then not follow it
; in my experience, usually it works fine. In the US, it would seem guys are often ignoring the handicapping rules and figuring out their own shots. That to me is a sure sign the system doesn't work. That said, we all know the greater the difference in handicaps, the less confident wew should be in the system's accuracy. Hence, in the UK, if possible, two divisions are set up along the lines of the handicap divisions. I don't know which handicaps fall into the divisions, but I think its something like this (I am wrong, but you get the idea)
Category 1: 0-6
Cat 2: 7-14
Cat 3: 15-to whatever
I think adjustments and handicap cut amounts are different for each category.
Ciao