i think that maybe you misunderstand how byo yomi is used in practice.

you have a giant pile of time that should be enough to account for basically
all of the hardest parts of the game.

then you have several (more than 1 !) byo-yomi periods, which are like
grace periods on top of what would otherwise be sudden death.

however, you don't enter byo-yomi until you have used all of your main time.
some people don't ever enter byo-yomi.  you certainly can't lose on time
unless you're in byo-yomi.

once you're in byo-yomi, each byo-yomi period is *plenty* of time to make
and answer the reasonably unchallenging final moves of the game.  if, however,
a challenging move does come up, you can "go over" your grace period.

that's pretty friendly from a sudden-death point of view.

you're just only allowed to "go over" some maximum number of times (often 5
or 10).

the reality is that if your opponent is playing moves that you can't answer
using byo-yomi, then he's perhaps trying to beat you with the clock, but
he's definitely better at the game than you are, and maybe you deserve to
lose anyway.  it's something that he might do if you're in byo-yomi and he
isn't.  he wouldn't play moves that he didn't know how to answer if he had
fewer byo-yomi periods than you did, because he'd just be beating himself
with the clock.

all of this adds up to: i think that what you're worried about (someone losing
on time while having spent less time playing) is unusual, or deserved.  here's
my thinking.

the only way this could happen would be if (correct me if there's a flaw here):

both players were into byo-yomi time.
player A starts to play moves very, very quickly.
player B plays moves more slowly (and presumably more deliberately).

at some point, player B plays one or more moves that player A has to
think really hard about.  player A goes "overtime" 4 separate times during
this stage of the game and is left with a single byo-yomi period left.  at this
point he can take up to 30 seconds (say) for every single move that he takes
if he wants to.  player B plays a very challenging move that player A can't
answer in a single byo-yomi period and then player A loses on time.

now, from my way of thinking, there's a sense in which player A deserves
this -- either he should have spent more of his time thinking during the endgame
instead of just making quick moves, or player B is better at generating and
figuring out complicated fights (in which case, well, no use crying over losing 
by time,
as that's almost the definition of what it means to be good at go).

s.




       
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