Canadian Timing

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    Keywords: Rules, Tournament

Definition

Canadian Timing is the time system where


Diagram

 |---|     time for N moves
 |------|  time before
 |------|  time after

Remarks

Canadian typically is used after Absolute Timing to manage overtime. This is popular in amateur tournaments:

On Go servers it is common to have a very short main time (1 minute, say) followed by relatively short (overtime) periods (of 5 minutes, say), each taking 25 stones. "Anyone for a 1/5 game?" This leads to a game with a brisk and steady pace (or a manic pace, depending on your point of view). A 200-move game played as 1/5 will never last more than 42 minutes.

With only a plain clock, Canadian has to be emulated -- see below.


Emulation

The player gets

The player must play all these stones before that time runs out. An example would be 25 stones within 5 minutes, an average of one stone every 12 seconds.

If the flag falls, the player loses on time.

If the player gets rid of his stones in time, a new period starts and there is another set of stones to play:

Note that


Questions

Where did the name come from? Why "Canadian" time? A chess thing?

Robert Pauli: No chess thing. See [ext] The Origins of Canadian Byo-Yomi.


Example

3 moves ("stones") in 3 minutes.

   #    Time   Stones    Used
   --------------------------
   1     3:00    3       0:40
   2     2:20    2       1:50
   3     0:30    1       0:29
   4     3:00    3       1:10
   5     1:50    2       1:45
   6     0:05    1       0:03
   7     3:00    3       2:10
   8     0:50    2       0:50
   9     0:00    1       lost

The two unused seconds in step 6 are spilled, and at most one more could have been used!


See also


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This is a copy of the living page "Canadian Timing" at Sensei's Library.
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