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

Table of contents Literal Definition and Pronunciation Japanese Professional Matches Japanese Overtime Example See also Notes

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.

In English it is pronounced in three syllables: byo-yo-mi. In Japanese it is pronounced similarly, but with the four syllables: byo-o-yo-mi. Each Japanese syllable lasts about ¼ second.

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 Title Match
• NHK Cup

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

• Byoyomi on Go Servers

• Short history of Byo-Yomi by John Fairbairn on life in 19x19: http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=25019#p25019

Notes

[1] Patrick Traill: At https://forvo.com/word/秒読み/#ja I hear something more like "byo-ə-yo-mi", with the second syllable a sjwa or a dull short "i", the fourth a much clearer sound. But I hesitate to try an IPA transcription.

[2] Dirk Schwartz? It's actually simply a duplication of the first "o" sound. A more correct transcription according to the Hepburn system would therefore be "byooyomi" (though a literal representation of the katakana word would be "byouyomi" with the letter/syllable "u" doubling the "o" sound). The shwa sound you seem to here might be due to the tone change from lower to higher during the long o vowel.