I like byo-yomi but I have only ever used it online (the tournaments I have played have always used Canadian overtime).

I like it because:
- It makes me feel like a pro
- It is interesting! There is a strategy to using your time well (e.g., if you have an obvious move, you can still use most of your time to look at other things).
- Because you are guaranteed 30 seconds (or whatever) every move, you don't run into situations where you suddenly realize you have to play 5 stones in 5 moves.

Interesting. The pro method is no time limits. They are a modern invention since the creation of the Nihon Kiin.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

I have no idea. I like byo-yomi personally, but the person that kept PM-ing me called my opinion "theoretical nonsense". I didn't wish to continue the conversation in private, so I started this thread.

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be immersed

I don't think we need to make a distinction between "accidental time loss" and "time loss due to time pressure". The latter is, of course, a loss, and the former is due to poor time management by the player.

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be immersed

Your personal preference is irrelevant. Question is, how many top group games should be decided with accidental time loss that has nothing to do with actual time pressure in EGF A -class tournaments. Everyone should give a rough figure what is correct percentage. Then we can compare and calculate how many games are being decided by clock rather than skill with different timing systems. And choose that system that gives a probability that is closest to that what is our tolerance for accidental time losses.

Even if you personally like Japanese byouyomi, you cannot use that an argument that we should use it on the tournaments.

But you are doing exactly the same thing. It is your personal preference that Japanese byo-yomi should not be used. It is impossible to accurately define "accidental time loss", so the figures that you are trying to come up with don't hold any real value. The fact is, "accidental time loss" is the same as "time pressure loss", because in both cases, the players used poor time management.

So by your logic, even if you personally DISlike Japanese byo-yomi, you cannot use that as an argument as to why we should not use it in tournaments.

By the way, personal preference is not irrelevant if the people playing in the tournaments have the said personal preference.

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be immersed

This is not true. In the game Dinerstein vs. van Zeijst in Tampere there was hundred percent of accidental time loss that had nothing to do with events on the board. It was just very human error that can happen because there are so many rare events that it is impossible for human to be prepared all of them. We can use this particular event as an definition of accidental time loss and we need set up tournament timing settings thus that this kind of events do occur as rarely as possible. It has nothing to do with my or anyone's personal preferences but we just do not want that there are vanzeijsts who bother appeals committee if we can avoid them using proper timing settings.

This seems to be a totally different thing?
I suspect that it has to do with malfunctioning Ing clocks and not necesarilly Japanese overtime, or Byo-Yomi. Or actually the fact that some timers are silent, which IMHO actually is a information issue, eg "Please make sure that the volume of the timer is set at your preferred level, and if the timer is silent (and you don't like that) swtch it to one with sound".

/Mats
PS I like Byo-Yomi, but Canadian Overtime is ok too, if only analog timers are available

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mohsart - games & books
http://spel.mohsart.se/

I believe that van Zeijst's loss was due to poor timekeeping skills. It's possible that having sound turned up on the clock could have aided him in the timekeeping for the game, but the fact is, he wasn't paying enough attention to his time to notice that it had run out.

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be immersed

This is not exactly so. In my knowledge, clock's sound was not turned off and van Zeijst had played already several (dozens?) moves in byouyomi before time loss. During some time he perhaps lost the the focus on Ing clock and her counting in byouyomi. Complaining to appeals committee was just natural and perhaps right thing to do. Even though it was vain for the final results, but at least that we can have a good discussion how bad Japanese byouyomi is especially with Ing clock.

I did not get confirmation for that that does Ing clock support Fischer? Or is it just third generation Ing clock that supports Fischer? If ing clock does support Fischer there is no reasons to not use Fischer in Bordeaux, expect perhaps people's vanity.

[edit:] actually it was perhaps that it was Dinerstein who fixed the result via appeals committee, because referee had game to be continued, but that decision was overruled by appeals committee. Perhaps I should be better aware of examples that i am using.

There is nothing wrong with losing a game on time, time management is part of tournament games after all. Some people believe that they shouldn't have to cope with time pressure, but I find that a little naive.

With Canadian overtime on Analog clocks it is relatively easy to cheat - you might consider that to be a bad thing. Most people do not consider the possibility that Go players will cheat, so they do not consider this point. Canadian overtime is my favourite anyway.
With Ing clocks, there are possibilities of technical difficulties, but that is not a systematic problem, only an implementation detail. Byoyomi is my third preference.
Ing overtime (points penalty for additional period) is my second favourite.
Absolute time is open to abuse, online I see many people trying to win by playing every legal move possible, in real life there is usually nothing to stop this sort of thing happening.

How do you cheat? Only way I can think of offhand is to count out, say, 23 stones instead of 25, and hope your opponent doesn't notice. But that seems quite difficult, I would be able to tell almost at a glance if the count was fishy.

38/40 would be less obvious, and although most people arrange their stones in tens, they don't always do so and I doubt I'd notice if there were two or three missing from the pile.

If the game were tense enough for that to matter, I'd probably also not notice them pocketing stones from the pile.

It seems pretty relevant to this thread, the title of which is "Byo-yomi: do you like it?"

We can greatly influence how likely time losses are. What do you think? Should we maximize or minimize the probability for time losses? Not all time controls are even with this aspect. And if we choose a bad time control, we certainly cannot accuse players if they lose on time. It is naïve to assume that with every time control the probability for time loss depends only how bad people are in controlling time.



You just ignored the main point in this debate. That is Japanese/Canadian overtime versus Fischer/Bronstein absolute timing with time bonus for each move. No one is of course even considering of using absolute timing without Fischer or Bronstein time bonuses in tournament settings. So what is your opinion about Fischer/Bronstein versus Japanse/Canadian overtime control?

Good that you mentioned Ing overtime. I did not even think that but only as an well financed curiosity.

You can count out the stones very slowly, pretend not to remember whose move it is, lose a stone or two. It's not actually that hard if you really want to gain a little time.

I'm sorry, I didn't realise. I thought this thread was about whether or not you liked Japanese Byoyomi

I thought that as well.

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be immersed

This is interesting point. Although we have discussed a lot of fischer and it is used widely all over the world in every kinds of tournaments from go tournaments to chess tournaments, still some people act like it does not even exist. If you want to express likings for some timing system, you need to express it in relation to other alternatives. Is it better or worse?

Players tend to want to complete a game regardless of time settings, and often feel a game won/lost on time is a spoiled game in some way.

Tournament directors and sponsors, on the other hand, have schedules to keep and would like for games to be completed on time.


Yes, people do consider absolute timing in tournament settings. Ing bonus time is an example of an absolute timing.