Let's talk about fischer time equivalence and faster games

General Go Discussion
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In this thread we talked about fischer time. I know the implications of different timings and how applies to chess, and would like to find an equivalence to use in go matches. This different timings are to cap the max time of a match and to give pressure, thrilling and fun to the games. Note: I’m not looking for maths at all, just trying to figure out different fischer time settings to apply to my online games and to have fun on my Go club days but with some balance between faster and interesting games too.

In chess usually we can categorize in this way (this are not the real time ranges, just a sample).
Slow - More than 1h per player.
Fast - less than 60 min per player
Blitz - less than 8min per player
Bullet - Less than 1min per player

People play all types of timings (with or without increment), but most common in online are Fast and blitz, being 5min, 10min, 15min probably for Fast (with or without increment) and 3+2 Blitz is probably the most common timing at all in online play. In tournaments and pro games, is another story.

Said that, chess has an important difference vs go. In chess a game can finish after one movement because checkmate, and this can’t happen in Go. Then, a chess game can have between 10 and 70 movements while Go will have almost always around 200. But Go has an important difference vs chess too, we have different standard board sizes that can fit different timings. Then, a 3+2 timing is crazy for 19x19, but a lot of fun in 9x9

I have no data at all, but I think 9x9 is typecast in “board to learn” when has depth too, and 13x13 is totally underated when can be a lot of fun and interesting in fast formats.

Then, bullet time can fit 9x9, Blitz can maybe fit both 9x9 and 13x13, and 19x19 can only fit on fast and up?
In GoQuest app, 9x9 is played with 3+1 and 13x13 5+3 (AFAIR)

Would like to know what do you think about and what different time settings / board sizes do you suggest for faster games to get, 5min games? 15mn games? 20min games?

Regards.

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Some games have only 200 moves, but a game on 19x19 can easily go over 300 moves.

There’s also the question of ko. When there is a long ko fight, it tends to add a lot of moves to the game, which can easily go over 350 moves in that case; but half of these moves are very easy to think about (just recapture the ko). So, if there is a long ko fight, an absolute time setting will feel harsher than usual, but a Fisher time setting with increment will feel much more relaxed than usual.

On GoQuest, 9x9 games are played with 3min+1s, but note that when playing a game on a phone with a tactile screen, playing a move is much faster than in real life, where you have to physically pick up a stone from your bowl, place it on the board, well aligned on an intersection, without messing up the position in your hurry, then press the clock. 3min+1s 9x9 feels comfortably on GoQuest, but would feel like a stressful blitz on a physical board.

I agree that 13x13 is underrated. In fact, when I play on GoQuest, I always feel that my opponents are stronger in 9x9 than in 13x13. I think many people haven’t thought about strategy on 13x13 at all, and are just applying 19x19 joseki on 13x13 with no regard for how they fit with the rest of the board.

In France, almost all tournaments used to be played with “Canadian byo-yomi”, which is very convenient for mechanical clocks. Now that electronic clocks are much more common, we’re slowly switching to Fisher timing. This has come with a few quacks, as tournament organisers had to find out by themselves how to convert the usual Canadian times into “equivalent” Fisher times, whatever “equivalent” might mean. One bad surprise that some tournament organisers didn’t anticipate is that they tried to calculate an equivalence based on “average game length”, but what really affect a tournament’s schedule is not the length of average games, it’s the length of the slowest game in every round!

2 Likes
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It’s not really about fast games at all but this methodology might be of interest:
https://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/EGF_rating_system.php

Specifically the bit about calculating adjusted time, which uses an assumption of 120 moves (per player):

Tournament classes

class A:
well organized tournament
time limit requirements: adjusted time minimum 75 minutes, basic time minimum 60 minutes;
Fischer time: basic time minimum 45 mins
weight for inclusion to EGF ratings: 1.00
class B:
well organized tournament
time limit requirements: adjusted time minimum 50 minutes, basic time minimum 40 minutes;
Fischer time: basic time minimum 30 mins
weight for inclusion to EGF ratings: 0.75
class C:
casual or club tournament
time limit requirements: adjusted time minimum 30 minutes, basic time minimum 25 minutes;
Fischer time: basic time minimum 20 mins
weight for inclusion to EGF ratings: 0.50
class D:
Tournaments played on Internet
time limit requirements: adjusted time minimum 50 minutes, basic time minimum 40 minutes;
Fischer time: basic time minimum 30 mins
weight for inclusion to EGF ratings: 0.25

Adjusted time (TA) calculation:

Japanese Time Control (Byoyomi)
TA = basic time + time equivalent to 45 moves
e.g.: basic time: 60 minutes, byoyomi: 30 seconds per move:
60 + ((45 * 30) / 60) = 82.5 minutes
Canadian Time Control
TA = basic time + time equivalent to 60 moves
e.g.: basic time: 60 minutes, byoyomi: 20 moves in 10 minutes:
60 + ((10 / 20) x 60) = 90 minutes
Fischer Time
TA = basic time + time equivalent to 120 moves
e.g.: basic time: 45 minutes, increment per move: 15 seconds:
45 + ((120 x 15) / 60) = 75 minutes
Absolute time (Sudden death)
TA = basic time
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A formula for capped Fischer is mssing.