Byo-Yomi
Byoyomi (秒読み) is a Japanese Go term which literally translates to "counting seconds." A player is in byoyomi when his remaining time is being counted aloud for him. See also the discussion of the literal meaning.
Byoyomi is also used more specificly to indicate Japanese Overtime or Japanese timing
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Literal Definition and Pronunciation
Byoyomi (秒読み) is a Japanese Go term which literally translates to "counting seconds." A player is in byoyomi when his remaining time is being counted aloud for him. See also the discussion of the literal meaning.
It is approximated in English as three syllables, "byoh-yo-me". (In Japanese it has four syllables, "byo-o-yo-me". Pronouncing it "bye-owe-yowe-mee" is definitely wrong.
The following sections discuss how the term byoyomi is used in specific situations.
Japanese Professional Matches
In Japanese title matches and televised games, when a player is running out of time, the timekeeper will count aloud the amount of time used. The timekeeper counts up rather than the Western practice of counting down. See the article entitled Time is the Enemy in Go World #13.
There is an excellent article on byoyomi by Richard Hunter in the British Go Journal , titled "Byoyomi Explained."
These pages also might help:
Japanese Overtime
How it works
- one gets a number of time periods of same size (e.g. 480 one-minute periods),
- time used for each move only deducts as many periods as fit into this time (possibly none),
- and counting seconds is done when one's number of periods is equal or less than a certain number (typically 10).
In other words,
- fractions of a period don't matter.
Example
1---1 time per period
1 2 3 4 5 6 number of periods |---|---|---|---|---|---| periods before
|---------| time used for move n (between 2 and 3 periods)
|---|---|---|---| periods for remaining moves (two periods are used up)
|--| time used for move n+1 (less than one period)
|---|---|---|---| periods for remaining moves (no period is used up)
(see also Japanese timing)
See also
- Short history of Byo-Yomi by John Fairbairn on life in 19x19:
http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=25019#p25019