odds

Etymology

From odd (“uneven, strange”).

noun

1. The ratio of the probability of an event happening to that of it not happening.
   I'd say the odds are strongly in favor of the sun rising tomorrow morning.
2. The ratio of winnings to stake in betting situations.
   I looked at the odds given by all bookmakers.
3. (chess) An advantage given to a weaker opponent in order to equalize the game when playing casually, usually by removing one of the stronger player's pieces or by giving the weaker player more time.
   She beat me with knight odds but lost with rook odds.
   The grandmaster gave his opponents significant time odds, of one minute versus ten minutes.
   The resulting match of fourteen games was won by Mr. Maurian, who had scored all the Knight-odds parties and the majority of the even-term ones! 1913, The British Chess Magazine, volume 33, Trubner & Company, page 51
   Nowadays, giving material odds in this way is rather rare, but the advent of the chess clock has made it possible for strong players to give time odds — taking one or two minutes for all their moves, for example, and allowing their opponents five minutes or more. 1989, Raymond Keene, The Simon & Schuster Pocket Book of Chess, Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, page 183
   Harry Golombek, who had returned from Argentina with the British chess team but spent two years in the infantry before joining B.P., occasionally played chess with Turing, giving Queen odds in order to make the game more equal. 1998, George W. Atkinson, Chess and Machine Intuition, Intellect, page 35
   And finally, if those are tied, they'll play a final sudden-death game, using a format known as armageddon. In armageddon, black gets "time odds": White gets five minutes while black gets just four, but a draw counts as a win for black. 2016-11-27, Oliver Roeder, “The World Chess Championship Comes Down To The Final Game”, in FiveThirtyEight, archived from the original on 2022-05-26
   Fischer described all female professionals' play at his time to be that of "beginners", and went on to boast about hypothetically beating any female chess player with knight odds (when challenged to the same, though, he didn't respond). 2018-09-23, Binit Priyaranjan, “Queens on the Board, Pawns in the Sport – the Underrepresentation of Women in Chess”, in The Wire, archived from the original on 2021-05-06
   The most important handicap historically is knight odds, because it produces play more similar to a normal game than handicaps like f7 and multiple moves, while still being a suitable handicap for rather strong players. 2021, Larry Kaufman, Chess Board Options, New in Chess
   Here, Nakamura took the white pieces and the time odds with the mandatory win requirement, and managed to break Nepomniachtchi's resistance to clinch the title. 2022-10-31, Luci Kelemen, “Nakamura wins 2022 Fischer Random Chess Championship, Carlsen slides to top-four finish”, in Dot Esports, archived from the original on 2022-12-17

noun

1. plural of odd