From: Larry Kaufman <lkaufman <at> WIZARD <dot> NET>
Date: 11 jul 1997
Subject: Byo Yomi

     Playing shogi without byo yomi does not work well because the endgame
requires as much or more time as the early part of the game, and the game
length is unpredictable.  However, even better than byo yomi is time delay,
in which each player gets a certain amount of free time per move, plus a
fixed total time for reflection beyond the free time.  This is actually the
way pro shogi has been played for ages, with one minute free time per move
and 4-9 hours per side beyond that.  Time delay is now the preferred time
control for U.S. Chess Federation events, and in my opinion is even more
suitable for shogi.  We have had some rated games played with a time control
of ten minutes per side, with 30 seconds free per move (such games take an
hour or so).  There are now several chess clocks on the market that support
delay.  However, if you want warning beeps when time + delay reaches a
specified number, today's clocks don't do this, but the "Chronos" clock
plans to add that feature in the near future.  When playing with fixed time
plus byo yomi, players have little incentive to avoid byo yomi unless the
initial time is large relative to the byo yome, which results in the endgame
being played out in pure byo yomi.  With delay, there is incentive to retain
some of your initial time for the endgame, which tends to result in higher
quality play as the player may have some residual time to find or verify
TSUME at the end.


Larry Kaufman, 301-309-0904, 9213 Wooden Bridge Road, Potomac, Md. 20854