What a crying shame!

[Uberdude]

With Ing tournaments top pros pay 2 points to get an extra 20 minutes after hours of play. Maybe they just suck at time management and the alternative is losing on time rather than byo-yomi. However I'm sure Ke Jie would take 3 extra points to play with 1.5 hour versus his opponent's 3 as he's a fast player and sometimes only uses that much anyway.

[moha]

The value of time in points is likely very different at start and later phases of the game. I think Ing's point penalties are indeed just a last resort, not even aiming to be fair time-bidding system.

[ez4u]

Last night (December 22nd) we had our year-end party for the amateur group that I play in every weekend at the Nihon Ki'in. I asked Sakai Maki 8p about trading points for time. I phrased it as 6 hours versus 1 hour since he has never played in a 2-day game. Six hours used to be the old default for the preliminary tournaments. He said there was clearly a difference but that no one knows how much it is worth since we have no experience playing that way. Hence he did not know how to decide on a value. Initially it would just be everyone's best guess. He refused to give his guess (he was grinning when he refused, clearly realizing that I was trying to pin him down. )

He also said that compared to main-time the difference in byo-yomi was clear and big. Sixty-second byo-yomi and thirty-second byo-yomi are very different [His emphasis]. This ties with my experience watching a lot of games from Japan's NHK Cup and Ryusei tournament. Many games involved players trying to gain time by making forcing moves as the count approaches 30 seconds only to have their opponents ignore them and completely change the flow of the game. This can be exciting TV but not good Go.

[sorin]

He refused to give his guess (he was grinning when he refused, clearly realizing that I was trying to pin him down. )

Thanks for trying!

He also said that compared to main-time the difference in byo-yomi was clear and big. Sixty-second byo-yomi and thirty-second byo-yomi are very different [His emphasis]. This ties with my experience watching a lot of games from Japan's NHK Cup and Ryusei tournament. Many games involved players trying to gain time by making forcing moves as the count approaches 30 seconds only to have their opponents ignore them and completely change the flow of the game. This can be exciting TV but not good Go.

Very interesting! I wonder now what exactly are the time limits in the current international competitions, I realize that my knowledge is very rudimentary: "couple of hours or so main time, some tens of seconds or so byo-yomi".

[sorin]

With Ing tournaments top pros pay 2 points to get an extra 20 minutes after hours of play. Maybe they just suck at time management and the alternative is losing on time rather than byo-yomi. However I'm sure Ke Jie would take 3 extra points to play with 1.5 hour versus his opponent's 3 as he's a fast player and sometimes only uses that much anyway.

Interesting, I forgot about this...
I agree with moha though, this sort of trading points for time is just like an emergency measure. However, if we had enough data about how often pros specifically made vs avoided the trade, and with what results, we may be able to learn something from it.

[Uberdude]

Tuo Jiaxi would have beaten Mi Yuting in the first game of this year's Chanqi cup final had he not had to have paid the time penalty. Mi went on to win the final 2-1. forum/viewtopic.php?p=238177#p238177

[John Fairbairn]

In talking about Game 2 of the recent Meijin final, Cho U spoke about time. He said he normally plays quite fast, but as he hadn't been in a title match for a while he decided to pace himself and take more time early on. But this particular game was especially difficult. It was close but there were a couple of positions where he found the combination of reading deeply and evaluating the results were particularly taxing. The result was that he was short of time for the endgame, and since the game went on for 336 moves that was a big part of this game. He missed a way of exploiting a mistake by Iyama and as a result lost by 2.5. But if he had had more time, he felt he might have won by 0.5.

So there's just one case where a single move makes a difference of 3 points through lack of time, and also an indication that pros do think about time management.

Incidentally, this interview revealed that Cho does bouldering as a hobby and as a way to keep fit for go. I hadn't come across this term before, despite doing a fair bit of rock-climbing in my youth. But since it apparently involves climbing without ropes or harnesses, I wonder if that tells us anything about whether Cho is a risk-taker.

One of the two positions Cho found taxing in Game 2 was after White 128 (Cho was Black). He was unsure about the balance between attack and defence in the centre and wondered what AI had to say about it. He didn't reveal that, but maybe some of the bot jockeys here can enlighten us.

[mhlepore]

I appreciate all the thoughts on the time vs. points issue.

One thing that makes me think time should be valued more than points in our hypothetical is the large percentage of current pro games that end in resignation. Some resignations are seen after a big fight decides the game, and some resignations are seen toward the end, when the gap is big enough that finishing the game is not obligated. Either way, it seems in a lot of these games that perturbations in komi may not matter that much. I realize counterexamples can be found, but on a general level, that is my thinking.

Also, I think most of us would agree that us folks over 40 would benefit more from extra time than the kiddos.

[sorin]

Either way, it seems in a lot of these games that perturbations in komi may not matter that much.

If we perturb the komi after the fight is over, indeed it doesn't matter
The way I think about it is that many fights occur when one side thinks they are behind (even by 1-2 points) and start complicating the game.
As a parenthesis: current komi seems to be too large so it favors white, but by less than one point, so there is no way to easy fix it.

[daal]

Incidentally, this interview revealed that Cho does bouldering as a hobby and as a way to keep fit for go. I hadn't come across this term before, despite doing a fair bit of rock-climbing in my youth. But since it apparently involves climbing without ropes or harnesses, I wonder if that tells us anything about whether Cho is a risk-taker.

If anything, then the opposite. Bouldering is indoor climbing, and you don't need any equipment because the you never fall more than a few meters, and always onto a nice thick and soft mat.

[Tryss]

You can do bouldering outside too, but it's indeed always close to the floor :


(the person behind is here to redirect you to the mat when you fall)

It's often more technical than "traditionnal" rock climbing. And far much shorter.

I'd say that, in go term, bouldering is akin to solving a tsumego

[sorin]

He refused to give his guess (he was grinning when he refused, clearly realizing that I was trying to pin him down. )

Thanks for trying!

I asked this question on Cho Hye-Yeon 9p forum on Facebook, and she replied unequivocally: 1 point is worth more then 100 minutes of thinking time for her, and she would make this trade-off at the beginning of the game, if given the chance:

[Bill Spight]

He refused to give his guess (he was grinning when he refused, clearly realizing that I was trying to pin him down. )

Thanks for trying!

I asked this question on Cho Hye-Yeon 9p forum on Facebook, and she replied unequivocally: 1 point is worth more then 100 minutes of thinking time for her, and she would make this trade-off at the beginning of the game, if given the chance:

So she would pay at least 100 min. time for 1 pt. Would she pay 1 pt. for 100 min.? My feeling is that the more time you have, the less per minute it is worth.

[sorin]

So she would pay at least 100 min. time for 1 pt. Would she pay 1 pt. for 100 min.? My feeling is that the more time you have, the less per minute it is worth.

I read her "1 point means everything to me" as "will not give away 1 point, no matter how much is the increase in thinking time".

(Of course, this is about a possible trade at the beginning of the game.)

[John Fairbairn]

I read her "1 point means everything to me" as "will not give away 1 point, no matter how much is the increase in thinking time".

Even if you read it correctly, it may not be right in the first place - self-delusions can creep in.

I say this on the basis of a long career in journalism where most news journalists, already under deadline pressure, invariably chose to leave writing the story until the very last minutes. We felt that this way we worked better. Quite possibly we did - one rational explanation is that the longer you delay, the more of a moving story you can incorporate. The intense focus you need also enables you to omit extraneous details, which is almost always good for a news story. You type faster. Above all, you feel r e a l l y good at the end of it. I have no recollection of anyone ever missing a deadline. You had to have your rush.

On occasions we'd be called on to write a feature or opinion piece, with much more time and no special deadline. That was purgatory. We'd be listless, and that would manifest itself by pecking away at the typewriter instead of pounding it. And many missed deadlines would occur.

I read years later that what is going is that, with a looming deadline, your reaction to it causes a pleasurable spike in noradrenaline in the brain, to which you can become mildly addicted. We all know of thrill seekers. The big difference in front-line journalism is that we have behind us an army of editors and sub-editors who catch our mistakes.

But mistakes do occur. One I still cringe at (but only mildly) is when, writing at very high speed a breaking story at a trade conference in Uruguay, I realised I couldn't remember the first name of the Uruguayan trade minister. I shouted out to the newsroom, "What's Iglesias's first name?" and got the instant reply "Julio" and that's what went into my story - instead of Enrique. I still finished on the usual high, which incidentally doesn't feel like a sugar rush - it's more like an icy calm at the time, and the pleasure comes afterwards. By which time your mistakes are in the safely forgotten past. The reason I remember that incident particularly is not because I made a mistake - I'm sure I made many and never bothered noticing. It was because on that one occasion the night sub-editor didn't catch my mistake and I was serenaded on my return. (For the teeny-boppers, Julio Iglesias was a big singing star of the time.)

I now know that chess blitz players experience a similar noradrenaline high, so it seems likely that go players do, too. They of course do not have anyone in reserve to catch their mistakes, but I would speculate that that makes their rush even more intense and thus even more pleasurable, closer to what the extreme-sports dare-devils must feel.

When you get used to that feeling, as blitz players must because of the sheer number of games they play (and you can play more in any given time), I can easily imagine, from my own experience, how wearisome extra time can feel.

I am therefore positing that go players who prefer to rush than dawdle may not be truly aware of either their mistakes or the size of them. And I further posit that they do make such mistakes.