From: Stephen J Lamb DEV ALS CO UK> Date: 10 dec 1996 Subject: Re: Byoyomi? > Occasionally, I see the phrase "30s byoyomi" in reference to a time > control. Is this extra time added for each move? How is it > tracked? Are regular chess clocks used? In European tournaments normally each player has "1 hour plus 30 secs byoyomi" for a game. This simply means that after the player has used his hour of time, he "enters byoyomi" and gets 30 seconds to make every move from then on. Most of the time people use a normal chess clock to do this - when their one hour of time has run out an observer will count down the 30 secs on a watch ("20", "10", "5", "4", "3", "2", "1", "Play", or similar). The player still has to press his button on the chess clock to finish making his move, though he now ignores the time on the clock and instead relies completely on the observer. The same procedure happens when the other player enters byoyomi as well - in this case the observer may count down the time for both players, or another observer may be called in to handle the second player's byoyomi. Nowadays people can use a special shogi clock instead which can handle byoyomi, so other people are not needed to count down the seconds on a watch. These clocks are made in Japan and can be ordered from there (I think the Shogi Renmei sells them, though I'm not positive). By the way, in Japan byoyomi is handled slightly differently in professional games. If a player manages to make a move in the game in less time than the time allocated for byoyomi, then the time for that move is not subtracted from the player's time remaining. For example, consider a game where each player has 6 hours plus 1 minute's byoyomi, and the current player has used 5 hours and 59 minutes of time. In that case he needs to make every move in less than a minute, since if he does this then the time for the move will not be subtracted from his time remaining and he will not run out of time. It is the timekeeper's job to keep track of all this. I'm not sure what happens in Japanese amateur games regarding byoyomi. I do know that a lot of amateurs play "sudden death" games though, i.e. no byoyomi. Also, I'm not sure what other countries (e.g. the US) do, though I suspect they also use the European way of handling byoyomi. So... I hope this short essay answers all your questions ;-) . It's a bit different from the way chess players handle time, each having advantages and disadvantages. I personally prefer "our" way of doing it though. > Thanks, Sean Chasworth You're welcome. All the best, Steve Lamb.