I've hated byoyomi basically since I've learned of its use. I think it's probably the worst part about Shogi compared to chess. In chess, we most commonly play with increment, which gives you a set amount of time back on every move, which you can save or use as you please in the future. Byoyomi, on the other hand, doesn't give you back any time, and instead simply gives you a per-move time bank which only activates when you've already run out of time. This encourages players to spend the entire bank when thinking about their move so they can think on their turn for as long as possible (see youtu.be/K88DLsv3agk), which leads to probably one of the worst game experiences I've had.
One of the top comments on that video is “time management is super important”, and I agree, but this isn't “time management”, it's the exact opposite. It doesn't encourage spending a reasonable amount of time thinking about each move to save time for the later ones, since there is no carryover. It encourages you to sit there in obvious positions and ponder life's greatest questions instead of playing the damned game. Another comment said it brings “excitement”, but I don't know what about waiting for exactly 58 seconds is “exciting”.
I believe increment should be on the homepage either alongside or intead of it. However, this is in this forum section because I'm not entirely sure about other people's opinions on the matter. I would love to hear other people's thoughts on this.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure the only reason byoyomi exists is because “we've always done it this way”, but that isn't a reason.
Endgames in shogi can be really sharp, and there are many cases where each move must be timed correctly or the player can go from entirely winning to entirely losing. In my opinion, this is a good reason for each move to have a baseline amount of time to think (like if even one move must be made quickly in a second or two and is incorrect, the player may instantly lose). Also, in close endgames you have to calculate two attack sequences (yours and your opponent's) on every turn and consider potential defensive moves as well.
> Endgames in shogi can be really sharp, and there are many cases where each move must be timed correctly or the player can go from entirely winning to entirely losing. In my opinion, this is a good reason for each move to have a baseline amount of time to think (like if even one move must be made quickly in a second or two and is incorrect, the player may instantly lose).
Okay, but that's not an argument for byoyomi, that's an argument for extra time in general. Increment also solves this problem.
I think the tricky part is that if the increment is too small, there will likely be moves where the player won't have enough time to think if the endgame is complex. On the other hand, if the increment is too large, then players may end up with several minutes to plan an attack and there won't be any time pressure. I feel that byoyomi of 30 seconds to 1 minute, while it does feel that time is wasted occasionally, provides a good balance of keeping your opponent on their toes while also giving them enough time to plan their next move if they've been practicing tsume shogi.
So at that point, if the increment should, at a minimum, cover a certain "baseline" amount of thinking time to ensure players have enough time on each turn, you might as well have a byoyomi because that would end up being less thinking time than an increment which can stack up time.
Well, no, because the increment also applies during the opening and middlegame, where you're thinking less. Also, not all endgame positions require the same amount of thinking. You could have a 20- or 30-second increment and it would stack up over the course of the game to be worth as much as that 1-minute byoyomi.
At that point you could do 30 second byoyomi which would be a faster game than 30 second increment. 60 seconds is typically the longest commonly used byoyomi.
I'm not sure why byouyomi and increment were authorised in the first place. Fortunately we can choose to play without byouyomi and increment. It makes the choice of opponents in the lobby up to... 0 and barely more in correspondence but we can still create our own games, and wait. 😜
I've seen people setting 0/30 games, meaning that they play with byouyomi or increment, not sure which one, only. Now that's interesting and makes these time settings valuable. 👍
There might not be a preset increment button on the homepage yet, but for now, you could just only play games here on lishogi where you host with a custom increment time control. Increment isn't as popular, so it might take a bit longer for someone to join, but you should still be able to get games. You can host a custom increment by clicking create game, choosing minutes per side, setting byoyomi to 0, and then clicking on the down arrow that's under the byoyomi slider, which will show the increment slider.
You might know how to do that already, but looking through your game history, you only have one game with an increment which was 9 months ago, so I thought your might not know.
As for players maximizing their byoyomi time in obvious positions, unless your opponent is stalling on the last move of a checkmate or something, I find it hard to blame people for trying to read as deep as possible with the time they have.
You can't post in the forums yet. Play some games!