Minimum absolute time setting can be determined. It should be ( different for 9x9 and 19x19 ) or ( 9x9 should have minimum time of 19x19 )
possible idea: if main time of byo-yomi is equal or more than minimum absolute time, then 1s/move byo-yomi may be allowed.
But: people which choose byo-yomi instead of absolute time do it for reason and may often incorrectly expect for it to be significantly different from absolute time. So I think 1s/move shouldn’t be allowed in ranked anyway.
I absolutely agree. I’d use that not only for super long time controls, but for approximating Primel time controls with, for example, increments of 8s. I would love to retain the flexibility of ranked too, though.
A suggestion to compute time estimates for different time settings and board sizes:
numberOfMovesPerPlayer = round(boardWidth * boardHeight / 3)
Fisher: totalTimePerPlayer = intitialTime + min(fisherMaxTime, numberOfMovesPerPlayer * increment)
Simple: totalTimePerPlayer = numberOfMovesPerPlayer * timePerMove * 0.75
Byoyomi: totalTimePerPlayer = mainTime + (numberOfMovesPerPlayer + periods - 1) * byoyomi * 0.75
Canadian: totalTimePerPlayer = mainTime + (numberOfMovesPerPlayer / stonesPerPeriod) * overtimePeriod * 0.75
Absolute: totalTimePerPlayer = totalTime
(time units of all parameters are the same)
And the timePerMove = totalTimePerPlayer / numberOfMovesPerPlayer
Then maybe the game should be unranked/signaled when timePerMove is less than 4s or more than 60s for live/blitz. And maybe the boundary between live and blitz is at about 10s timePerMove?
You can play (and maybe find bugs) with this google spreadsheet. Edit the bold numbers (note the units, m = minutes, s = seconds) to see numbers change in the F and G columns.
I was trying to remember what we discussed last year on Christmas eve.
Comparing to chess (taking numberOfMovesPerplayer = 80):
Bullet would be about 2 minutes + 1 second increment, computing to a timePerMove of about 2.5s (~5 minutes absolute in go).
Blitz ranges from about 4 minutes absolute or 3 minutes + 2 second increment to about 10s per moves. That would compute to a timePerMove ranging from about 3-4s to about 10s (~6-20 minutes absolute in go).
Rapid range is 10-60 minutes + 0-10s increment, computing to a timePerMove ranging from about 10s to about 60s, which is similar to what I would call “live” time settings in go (~20-80 minutes absolute in go).
as we can see, number of games that needs 300 moves is not little.
if 2s/move is minimum, then 150*2s=300 seconds absolute time per player or 5 mins
so absolute time surely shouldn’t be less than 5 mins in ranked
but,
Yes, the average game may be (a little) longer than 240 moves due to ko fights and captures in general. But ignoring (ko) captures, I think 240 moves is a decent estimate: both players placing about 120 living stones and making about 60 points of territory is quite normal IME and it adds up to 360 intersections.
If you think but don’t read, a blitz is ok between 8 and 10 mns/player.
Some related debates here
Ah yes I cropped it too much and missed that one.
Was trying to avoid the many variants ratings.
Something like 15s+0 absolute.
¼+0 • Rated • UltraBullet
It could be something like adding back some fraction of a second for general latency?
Probably; that’s one of the cool things lichess does.
I’ve seen people make upwards of 20 moves with less than a second on the clock in lichess bullet arenas… I get the impression their clocks run differently to ours… Almost like every second is its own mini byo-yomi period where it gets restored if not exhausted… I’m not sure if we do that?
Premoving? Like conditional moves here, but a much faster input method as they aren’t actually conditional on what you’re opponent did, so can lead to mistakes if opponent plays something surprising.
Yes certainly pre-moving is part of it, but even apart from that, I believe I’ve seen milliseconds be refunded to restore a full second and I’m not sure if we do that or not…
Besides premoving, isn’t that just a 1s increment they’re often using in bullet?
If you use less than a second to move and the software records the actual time used client-side between showing you the opponent move and you responding (compensating for various sources of lag), you would be building up your time reserve.
nah almost all bullet tournaments I’ve seen on Lichess are 1+0 not 1+1
Maybe chess inherently offers more opportunities for time-suji moves, such as (premoving) forcing moves, that you can play regardles of their move?
Edit: I now realize that without any time increment, time-suji moves wouldn’t help much. So you’d have to autopilot much of the game to play ~80 moves in a minute. I guess it helps that some chess positions end a bullet game immediately (checkmate, and probably many drawn positions), while go doesn’t have a forced game end. Your opponent can always stall the end of the game in go.
As an extreme ultra blitz player lover, 2 seconds is barely within my comfort range. Most of the go population can barely play this fast while thinking, to begin with, and I had to practice from 5 seconds deliberately ignoring my reading and just playing on instinct for quite a while to get this far if you call it an achievement. I can say for a fact that 1s per move is unfeasible and should not be ranked.
In fact, I’d also like to strongly recommend others to read the time settings that people propose. I also think that for 19x19, game scoring should be automatic if the time setting is less than 5 seconds per move, 1 byoyomi.
If we were to strictly enforce minimum time settings, I would set it at 5 seconds per move.
This is false. @stone_defender and I have proved that it’s possible to finish also a 19x19 game: 🐬Sofiam🐬 vs. stone defender
But I agree with you on the fact that this kind of games should not be ranked, as I already said.
5 seconds may be a bit high as a limit, but it is better than no limit at all, IMHO.
I meant 1 sec byoyomi, since I feel like any additional time on top of that like the 5sec + 1 really depends on how much extra time you put. 
I feel like any faster than 5 seconds and you’re really limiting reading capabilities/basic instincts of the game, which should be enforced for a ranked game.
