My guess is very few games go over an hour 
2 Likes
Where you play absolute is there an understanding that the clock is as much part of the game as the board, and therefore playing on with normal moves when hopelessly 100 points behind on the board but ahead on the clock is entirely reasonable and not unsporting behaviour and tolerated? If so, how about playing stupid moves inside your/their territory that you’d never do in a slower game when 100 points behind to get the clock win? There was a team tournament at the Nippon club in London some years ago I used to play in where the former was seen as ok, but the latter not. One fast player I always beat in usual tournament games with overtime would do this and it annoyed me, but not too much as the games were unrated. If they were rated I wouldn’t have played / kicked up more of a fuss about that behaviour being allowed.
3 Likes
No it is not tolerated at all, and the judge will step in if that happens. In fact this should be the case in all absolute time games, but seems like many people do not have this idea or are afraid that the opponent will suddenly turn into a monster who mindlessly place stones on the board once the time control changes to absolute.
2 Likes
Ya, it required judges but not suited for an online system.
And I am always impressed by the Ing’s time-setting design. Not only does it legit make time control part of the game and ensure a clear maximum time, and easy to set up. I always wonder why it wasn’t implemented for online servers.
First question, what is it?
Is it what they use in the Ing cup, where you have to buy extra time with points?
So say you have X amount of main time and can buy extra time at most three times for Y points.
I’m not sure it’s better than just having a byo-yomi or something. There’s already the inherent penalty of mismanaging time that now you have to think fast in byo-yomi, but that kind of ing system is adding an extra point penalty on top of being down to a limited extra time.
1 Like
Byoyomi or Fischer is already very stressful… I don’t want to make it more stressful by buying time with points lol
2 Likes
I suppose the other thing is, if you’re committing to an absolute time game anyway, you could make an Ing like system X plus the option of buying 3Z one off increments into a system of just X+3Z total time and no penalty other than losing.
As in I guess the idea is to encourage the players to finish in time X, but allow for games to finish in X+6Z, except discouraging it with points losses - except those can cancel each other out potentially.
Ing’s rules actually have two types of time-setting, if you want to use byoyomi like the extended time can be set to no penalty, or they can be set to absolute time, and as others had said, if you know you are going overtime, don’t play slowly, or you play slowly calculate better and aim for a higher score difference in the first place if your opponent doesn’t want to spend time (Ichiriki use this strategy in the last Ing Cup), they will get punished. Just don’t immediately lose when running out of main time. It should be less stressful than absolute time, at least more tactical.
You clearly have no understanding of absolute time games. Or the problem that I was raising.
On absolute time – time management is the thing. You can’t spend 90% of your time on your first 40 moves creating an unbeatable opening position and then expect the other player to resign. You MUST keep enough time to actually finish the game. That’s what absolute time is about. If you can’t finish the game, you lose the game. So you use your time wisely. Or you don’t. I win or lose games on time, or on points, just like my opponents. And when I’m ahead on points, even significantly, and lose on time, I take that as my own failure to manage my time. Something clearly you would have a problem with.
On the complaint – I’m not complaining about this game, I’m complaining about a system that creates an avenue for cheating. If I had been behind by 4 points or 5 points, the system could have been abused the same way. It is a tool that was designed to stop cheating, and it created a new way to cheat, and as someone who likes a completely fair, level playing field, that bothers me.
3 Likes
Everyone talks about this as a danger in absolute time games, but as someone who plays them almost exclusively – I rarely see that.
BUT, I also try go guard against it. By keeping more time on my clock. 90% of the time someone tries this approach with me, THEY end up losing on time because I’m ahead on time and have protected myself against it.
1 Like
If I’m already losing and I get penalty I just get more stressed 
. I think one of Ichiriki’s game was like that where he just kept getting penalty after penalty.
Also, I don’t really like the idea of buying time with points. It may make it more tactical, but it also kind of changes it into a variant where what’s happening on the board is directly affected by things outside the board. Just imagine the possibilities if this kind of thing is allowed (buying ko threats with time or points, buying special abilities with time or points, etc.). IMO time should be something that controls how fast the game goes and not directly affect what’s happening in the game.
Just imagine it being used in chess… if you run out of main time you lose a pawn… Not sure whether people will play it
2 Likes
I’m glad we’re getting someone who actually plays absolute time involved. Would not showing the Antistalling feature until 3 consecutive passes AND katago doesn’t think passing changes the score evaluation by more than 0.49 work with the absolute time use case, in your estimation?
2 Likes
I think that would for sure. The AI breakdown shows all the moves. +5 here, -7 here. It should be able to tell that no move will change the outcome.
1 Like
I’d also like that. The evaluation doesn’t have to start running until after the passes, so it shouldn’t be that many calls to katago, particularly since katago is already being called once in that situation to test for gap>10
2 Likes
False. The button does not appear at 4 or 5 points. I guarantee the game you complained about was not 4 or 5 points, but feel free to share it.
It doesn’t matter how many points it was. He was about to lose on time. The fair result is that he loses. I can be 300 points ahead and lose on time. That’s how absolute time works. And so if you are creating a system that enables cheating, it should be fixed.
Again, the fact that your focused on the score difference indicates that you simply do not understand absolute time games.
1 Like
I think most Go players are intelligent enough to read the settings on any game offer. If they choose to play absolute, that’s fine by me. Why take away that choice? Arguing that because you’re bad at designing a UI you need to remove a particular game option is not going to win many fans.
4 Likes
Nobody is actually proposing to remove absolute time.
The discussion is about how much we should do to accommodate a pretty niche time setting without degrading otherwise useful features.
2 Likes
Eliminating it has been proposed.
What has been proposed here that would degrade the game for players not using absolute time?
1 Like
I don’t think eliminating it has been seriously proposed (not counting Benjito’s joke which now finds itself as top comment).
No saying it has been proposed, just that it is a constraint as to what solutions would be acceptable.
3 Likes