Byo-yomi (countdown) game clock

[ddugovic]

Players, spectators, and commentators regularly speak about time management, and about using the clock as a weapon. Having played go and shogi the past few years, I can say: for serious player-versus-player matches, byo-yomi is the only clock mode which encourages players to play well. Lishogi.org implemented a byo-yomi clock and hopefully I can encourage Lidraughts, Liwords (a.k.a. Woogles.io), etc. to follow suit (although this clock mode may be even less suitable for tournaments than increment is, I fear).

This timing method is also used in shogi. The word is borrowed from Japanese; the term literally means "counting the seconds", or more generally, "countdown".

After the main time is depleted, a player has a certain number of periods (for example five periods, each of thirty seconds). If a move is completed before the time expires, the time period resets and restarts the next turn. If a move is not completed within a time period, the time period will expire, and the next time period begins. This is written as [maintime] + [number of byo-yomi time periods] of [byo-yomi time period]. Using up the last period means that the player has lost on time. In some systems, such as certain Go title matches, there is no main time; instead, the time used is rounded up to the nearest whole increment, such as one minute, and the actual counting of time occurs toward the end of one player's time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_control#Byo-yomi