I am fairly new to OGS Love it. But I don’t understand the time limitations. For example, Byo-yomi. I read the explanation but didn’t entirely make sense to me. Then there is “Fischer”, “Simple”, “Canadian”, and “Absolute”. With ABSOLUTELY no disrespect, I think what is needed is something rather simpler for relative newbies like me (and I’m sure others) who want to challenge a game but no clue what time limits to put on it. Just something that fairly simple. With experience players can understand better the nuances of time. that’s all
Well, the interface for creating a game challenge could’ve probably been simpler, but believe me it could’ve been much more complex Until you accustomed to using time control, I’d recommend you to follow the advice given in the help section and trust the server to provide you with reasonable defaults:
While the options on this screen can be overwhelming at first, they’re all optional and while you probably want to select your Game Speed, you can safely ignore the rest and just click Challenge on the bottom right to create your open challenge.
In principle, time control systems, despite being numerous and having fancy names, are all pretty simple. There can be main time (how long the entire game is supposed to last), overtime (how fast you are supposed to make moves once the main time is over) or some combination of these two. Most differences between the systems are about how exactly they specify overtime.
Finer details, I think, are easier to grasp by seeing them in action than by reading long explanations.
AFAIK Byo-yomi is THE standard (in Go) for live games (esp. in Real Life tournaments).
http://senseis.xmp.net/?ByoYomi
This may also be helpful: http://senseis.xmp.net/?ByoyomiOnGoServers
Short history of Byo-Yomi by John Fairbairn on Life in 19x19
And Fischer Timing is quite usual here for correspondence games — l think, to be exact, it is Capped Fischer Timing, see here: http://senseis.xmp.net/?CappedFischerTiming
HTH, and wishing you lots of fun with your games,
Tom
Less choice for the time settings could be part of the “newbie mode” that has been discussed on uservoice.