I don’t know what it is, but in a couple of games I start getting a female voice counting “10, 9, 8, 7…” It engages quickly and absolutely destroys my concentration. How do I turn it off or avoid it?
Mogadeet
That’s the countdown for a time interval. It’s part of the rule structure of go, I believe, or at least longstanding tradition. It’s done live in serious IRL games, I think. When you get used to it, you may come to appreciate it.
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To turn it off:
1: Click on the OGS symbol. Top-left.
2: Select Settings near the bottom of the menu.
3: Uncheck the box labelled 'Voice countdown’
My apologies to whoever recorded the voice but I find it very irritating too.
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Where it is bad is when you are absorbed in the board, and trying with all your might to view the future in all of its complexity, and all of a sudden that voice jumps in, chanting “Ten, Nine, Eight…” I can sympathize with my cats when they get so startled they attach themselves like Velcro to the ceiling.
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And yet, wouldn’t it be equally disturbing to be alerted, 10 seconds later, that you lost by timeout?
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Indeed it would be but there is also the visual 10sec countdown at the mouse pointer so I think it is great that the voice countdown is optional. Saves me from having to mute my device.
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I have lost due to time-outs, but the voice would only have served to cause me to “throw a stone on the board” rather than make a play. When I get timed out is when I am in a position where I cannot decide what to do. An amateur illness, to be sure, but a point I still manage to reach occasionally. The visual cue seems to be sufficient because it doesn’t startle me.
Ultimately, though, it is a choice between a rock and a hard place.
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I would just like OGS to disable the countdown for the last ten seconds of main-time.
It’s super startling, no other server does it, so it makes you think you are about to lose a byoyomi period. I’ve seen batts get tricked by it before.
Just a beep or announcement when byoyomi starts would be cool.
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Agreed. I can’t see what purpose it serves warning about main-time ending if there are byoyomi periods available. I have also been tricked into a rushed move by this.
I guess it’s lucky that you can just disable this if you don’t like it then, eh! 
The voice can be disabled but the timer on the pointer can’t, as far as I know. That’s what tricked me and appears to serve no purpose in the situation described.
If you want to get used to it:
play a couple of blitz-games (with the voice countdown on) after a while you don’t bother anymore,and even start to miss it (when it not working for some reson).
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