Life In 19x19

All the discussion about various time-keeping systems (which are about as interesting to me as the rules threads) prompted me to go look at the database figures for losses on time. Out of 58428 games since 1900, we have 190 losses on time (0.33%). I have not looked at other tournaments, especially those with quick-play time limits, but I did look at the Oteai games, since it was played for more than half a century. Out of 3123 Oteai games, I found 3 (0.096%) losses on time. Does anyone know the time limits used in the Oteai? John Power's article in the Almanac doesn't mention the subject of playing conditions, game recording or clocks at all.

Best wishes.

Surely it would have been much more direct to send John F an email. He'd respond to you, right?

hyperpape wrote:Surely it would have been much more direct to send John F an email. He'd respond to you, right?

John Power != John Fairbairn

I think T Mark meant his question as a trick question. The answer is on the GoGoD CD.

But as John Power was mentioned, and as questions about time limits are often associated with recording games, I'll share this recent note from John P with you. I've delete the name of the pro but it was a 9-dan.

"I know that when I came to Japan in the 70s, the rule was that the winner wrote up the game record and handed it in to the teaika. I once came across a pro I know in the (then) Nihon Ki-in restaurant who was writing up his recent wins. He'd put in a few moves in one record, then switch to another when he couldn't remember the next move. He'd then come back to the original one. He was doing 3 or 4 games at the same time, so you have to wonder how accurate the final records were."

This is not an isolated story, and it may explain all those games that have two moves 140 and so on.

xed_over wrote:

hyperpape wrote:Surely it would have been much more direct to send John F an email. He'd respond to you, right?

John Power != John Fairbairn

Yeah, I saw that he mentioned John Power in the writeup. I made my comment because 1) John F ought to know if anyone on L19x19 does and 2) he's TMark's collaborator.

TMark wrote:All the discussion about various time-keeping systems (which are about as interesting to me as the rules threads) prompted me to go look at the database figures for losses on time. Out of 58428 games since 1900, we have 190 losses on time (0.33%). I have not looked at other tournaments, especially those with quick-play time limits, but I did look at the Oteai games, since it was played for more than half a century. Out of 3123 Oteai games, I found 3 (0.096%) losses on time. Does anyone know the time limits used in the Oteai? John Power's article in the Almanac doesn't mention the subject of playing conditions, game recording or clocks at all.

Best wishes.

This makes it sound as if time systems aren't an issue, but I feel this is misleading. This figure doesn't take into account all the games that were lost due to extreme time pressure. I feel this is the largest way that bad time systems show themselves, and this is unfortunately difficult to measure.

As far as I know (big disclaimer), almost all japanese games used 1 minute byoyomi (and five hours of thinking time). It is quite difficult to get a "real" time loss that way. It also seems that the professionals never thought of "letting the clock resign for you".

I think that it is still common to have 5 hours per player and a 1 minute byoyomi. This means that a game can last 10 hours plus byoyomi. This is quite a workday: 9:00 start game, 12:00-13:00 lunch break, 13:00-18:00 game time, 18:00-19:00 dinner break, 19:00-21:00 game time, then extra time due to byoyomi (I am not sure whether there is a dinner break).

I believe that it would be an improvement to use Bonus time, with a setting that gives 10 hours for 300 moves, e.g. 150/60, or 8 hours (115/50). Perhaps one could get a lobby through the players' spouses .

Well, both John and I are working on clarifying the information, but the precise time limits, method of time-keeping and use of byoyomi in Oteai games is not well known, possibly because they varied so much and because there was not too much interest shown. For example, John quoted to me a number of losses on time in the Oteai in the mid-60s which don't show up in the database; this is because most of the Oteai games were not published, so they don't get into our records. OK, the question was a bit cheeky, but not trollish. I have had too much experience of trolls to go down that route.

Best wishes.

The actual time losses are only a small part of the time systems.
Things to consider as well are

- how much time is spilt (fast/slow player, emphasizing the opening/end game)
- how well is a player capable to deal with the relative time system (e.g. getting easily panicked when running out of time, lack of efficient use of time)

The discussion about the time systems was mainly to minimize such time related factors and to be able to concentrate more on the skills on the board.