I remember seeing one or two handicap posts awhile ago...for the people who're just too much more skilled than their opponents. I had a thought that I felt was fairly elegant the other day.
Simply take 1 less turn. In multiplayer, opponents will hardly notice, and in singleplayer, your opponent will likely forget by the end of the game anyway. There's no obvious "oh right, he started with a curse" or whatever.
Issues: You could get hit pretty hard by attacks. You could be discarding cards on your 2nd turn or shuffling in curses as early as your 3rd turn.
