Byo-yomi: Do you like it?

[HermanHiddema]

As an experienced tournament organizer, I can say that Canadian byoyomi is the worst system for keeping your tournament well scheduled. I've experienced with a time setting of 1 hour each, plus 15 stones per 5 minutes, that players managed to play longer than 3 hours total (which means that together they played more than 180 moves in byoyomi). I've never seen this at 1 hour each plus 20 second per move. For this reason I strive to always have enough electronic clocks to be able to do Japanese byoyomi on all boards.

The cause for the above is that players spill less time with Canadian. Which is also why many people prefer it over the Japanese way, they like the flexibility of scheduling their own time. Personally, I prefer Japanese byoyomi slightly over Canadian, because it allows me to think about my moves, rather than about scheduling my remaining X minute for Y moves.

Another issue is punishment. As mentioned elsewhere, Dutch tournament rules punish running out of time in Japanese byoyomi with a forced pass, rather than a loss on time. I think that is a more reasonable, and more logical, punishment than an immediate loss.

[Harleqin]

As an experienced tournament organizer, I can say that Canadian byoyomi is the worst system for keeping your tournament well scheduled. I've experienced with a time setting of 1 hour each, plus 15 stones per 5 minutes, that players managed to play longer than 3 hours total (which means that together they played more than 180 moves in byoyomi). I've never seen this at 1 hour each plus 20 second per move. For this reason I strive to always have enough electronic clocks to be able to do Japanese byoyomi on all boards.

The cause for the above is that players spill less time with Canadian.

Actually, the cause for the difficulty of estimating a game length is that there is no requirement to play even a single stone in your main time. When you set 1 hour plus canadian overtime of 15 stones per 5 minutes, you actually allow a game length (assuming 300 moves as an upper bound) of 3:40 h. Of course, you hope that all players use their main time for a significant part of the game, but that is not required by the system.

There are two ways to alleviate this problem, when you want to stay with canadian overtime: reduce the main time, or make the byoyomi faster. I think that the former way addresses the root cause, but 1 hour plus 20 stones in 5 minutes should also usually be fast enough to schedule round starts 3 hours apart. 30 stones per 5 minutes is fast enough to entice players to use their main time for most of the game, but it also opens the possibility of driving the opponent over the time.

[Liisa]

Personally, I prefer Japanese byoyomi slightly over Canadian

And what is your opinion as an organizer and as a player when comparing Canadian/Japanese overtime control versus absolute fischerian timing?

I have no experience of dutch penalty system. But it feels that it rather tells that it is recognized that there are some ethical problems with byouyomi and there is some efforts made towards fixing the problem. But without knowing how it actually performs, it feels that this fix does not lead significantly better results. Although at least some unjustified defeats might get saved so certainly it is better than nothing. I would still eliminate the whole problem altogether with Fischer timing.

[HermanHiddema]

As an experienced tournament organizer, I can say that Canadian byoyomi is the worst system for keeping your tournament well scheduled. I've experienced with a time setting of 1 hour each, plus 15 stones per 5 minutes, that players managed to play longer than 3 hours total (which means that together they played more than 180 moves in byoyomi). I've never seen this at 1 hour each plus 20 second per move. For this reason I strive to always have enough electronic clocks to be able to do Japanese byoyomi on all boards.

The cause for the above is that players spill less time with Canadian.

Actually, the cause for the difficulty of estimating a game length is that there is no requirement to play even a single stone in your main time. When you set 1 hour plus canadian overtime of 15 stones per 5 minutes, you actually allow a game length (assuming 300 moves as an upper bound) of 3:40 h. Of course, you hope that all players use their main time for a significant part of the game, but that is not required by the system.

Yes, I meant to say that the cause for the difference between Canadian and Japanese is in less time spilt. Of course both systems still allow players to play any amount of moves in byoyomi, which is the root problem in scheduling such games.

In my experience, 3 hours has always been sufficient to finish all 1h+20s games, but it is not guaranteed.

There are two ways to alleviate this problem, when you want to stay with canadian overtime: reduce the main time, or make the byoyomi faster. I think that the former way addresses the root cause, but 1 hour plus 20 stones in 5 minutes should also usually be fast enough to schedule round starts 3 hours apart. 30 stones per 5 minutes is fast enough to entice players to use their main time for most of the game, but it also opens the possibility of driving the opponent over the time.

Yes, nowadays I prefer to use 20 stones per 5 minutes, when the (Japanese) byoyomi is 20 seconds. But I try even harder to just get enough electronic clocks together, and I can usually get them nowadays.

Personally, I prefer Japanese byoyomi slightly over Canadian

And what is your opinion as an organizer and as a player when comparing Canadian/Japanese overtime control versus absolute fischerian timing?

I have no experience either organizing or playing in a tournament with Fischer timing, I have only played Fischer timing in casual games. That said, I think Fischer time is an excellent system from an organizer point of view, because you can calculate the maximum total time of a game accurately from its number of moves, and with the knowledge that games of over 300 moves are exceptional, you can choose your Fischer parameters to fit your schedule.

I know that a friend of mine, who won the endurance prize for most time spent in byoyomi at the EGC 2009, recently played a German tournament with Fischer time and was very happy with it.

I have no experience of dutch penalty system. But it feels that it rather tells that it is recognized that there are some ethical problems with byouyomi and there is some efforts made towards fixing the problem. But without knowing how it actually performs, it feels that this fix does not lead significantly better results. Although at least some unjustified defeats might get saved so certainly it is better than nothing. I would still eliminate the whole problem altogether with Fischer timing.

In my opinion, the purpose of pretty much all timing systems is to make sure that games finish within a reasonable amount of time. That is why they were introduced. The purpose of byoyomi is to make sure that players don't lose on time despite playing with time limits, which they would do if it were sudden death. That is why I think a forced pass is more logical. Byoyomi is meant to prevent time losses, therefor there should be no time losses with byoyomi. A byoyomi period is given in order to make a move. If you fail to do that, you didn't make a move, ergo you passed.

Still, I think these problems can never be wholly eliminated, there is no guarantee with any timing system that players will make a move in time, but they can be reduced quite a lot.

[palapiku]

I would imagine that in most games on dan and SDK level a forced pass virtually guarantees that you will lose.

And of course the possibility that the opponent might instantly pass again and end the game opens a whole different can of worms.

[mohsart]

I guess the forced pass rule might encourage people to keep playing a lost game in hope of this to happen, I'm not so sure it's a good thing...

/Mats

[HermanHiddema]

I guess the forced pass rule might encourage people to keep playing a lost game in hope of this to happen, I'm not so sure it's a good thing...

/Mats

I'd guess they'd actually be less likely to keep playing with the forced pass rule, compared to a situation where it is an instant loss. Also, if they're really far behind, the pass might not even help them enough.

[mohsart]

Heh, good point :-)

/Mats

[Dusk Eagle]

I don't know about all rulesets, but I believe Japanese rules allow a player to resume the game even after both players pass, except that it becomes the other player's turn. So, if running out of time caused you to pass rather than forfeit the game, it really serves no purpose for your opponent to pass and try to end the game, as it will fail.

[Harleqin]

Passes should simply never end the game by themselves. They mark a good opportunity for the players to agree to end the game, but nothing more.

[Liisa]

After listening this Concert for 103 Ing Clocks there is no person who can take Japanese byouyomi seriously anymore. At least little laughter will be present when seeing someone playing serious go while in byouyomi. So do I like byouyomi? I guess that I do, because it is so hilarious thing!

[mohsart]

That's about Ing timers, not Byo-Yomi.
While most people seem to dislike the sound, it is when they occationally don't make sounds people complain about losing on time because they were expecting it.
I find this quite laughable.

/Mats

[Liisa]

point is that byouyomi (秒読み、びょうよみ) means reading seconds out loud. This is the reason why you cannot disable Ing clock from not speaking, because Japanese byouyomi is defined as reading seconds out loud. And Japanese are just happy, if we can have a mechanical device to do the boring task instead of human assistants.

[topazg]

That's about Ing timers, not Byo-Yomi.
While most people seem to dislike the sound, it is when they occationally don't make sounds people complain about losing on time because they were expecting it.
I find this quite laughable.

/Mats

I admit that complaining about both is laughable, but I sit in the former camp. I don't want my clock, or anyone else's, to make noise. I make a point of checking the clock time when I move, as time management is important. I would like a digital clock for this reason too, as it is easier (for me) to at a glance see exactly how long I have. Even if it is 34 minutes and 12 seconds, the absolutely accurate clarity I find reassuring.

However, if it got down to 37 seconds or something, I would still expect to be responsible for my management of it, and not wanting it making noises at me. If I time out because I wasn't paying attention, that's my fault, why would I complain?

[mohsart]

point is that byouyomi (秒読み、びょうよみ) means reading seconds out loud. This is the reason why you cannot disable Ing clock from not speaking, because Japanese byouyomi is defined as reading seconds out loud. And Japanese are just happy, if we can have a mechanical device to do the boring task instead of human assistants.

I got the impression that sound can be turned off for the latest version of Ing timers.
Anyways, I have never heard of anybody calling Japanese overtime without sound anything else than Byo-Yomi, and I don't see a reason for it either, regardless of the (original) meaning of the word.
Heck, loads of people even call Canadian overtime "Canadian Byo-Yomi"...

/Mats