From: Larry Kaufman <lkaufman <at> WIZARD <dot> NET>
Date: 4 sep 2000
Subject: Re: MSO 2000 Shogi Festival

At 12:46 PM 9/4/00 +0200, you wrote:
>
>Of course it is foolish to enter byoyomi. I think of the byoyomi as sort
>of
>a punishment for thinking to slow. But it enables the player to play on
>and not
>loose by time (as in chess).
>
>Rikard Nordgren
>
>
     When the byoyomi (in seconds) exceeds the main time (in minutes), as
is the case in most U.S. tournaments as well as all "ShogiDojo" games, it
is not at all foolish to enter byoyomi.  To avoid byoyomi you would need to
play at an average pace much faster than the byoyomi itself, without much
benefit.  So we in the U.S. and those who play on ShogiDojo have got used
to the idea of byoyomi being a normal part of the game, not a punishment
for slow play.  However the time limit of 1 hour + 30" is only justified by
thinking of byoyomi as a punishment for slow play, as you say.  I think it
leads to much lower quality of play than say 40' + 1' byoyomi, which would
probably take about the same amount of time.
     The increment system (also called "Fischer", though it was invented by
me for use in shogi with the "Micromate" clock around 1980, long before
Fischer mentioned it), in which the player must average a fixed amount of
time per move, leads to much better shogi in the same amount of time than
byoyomi.  Basically, byoyomi is a holdover from the days when better
methods were not available.

     Larry Kaufman