Hi.
I have been running a gnugo bot on kgs thru the kgsGtp bridge for a while now and have noticed a few things. The problem lies in the fact that the gtp protocol only supports Canadian overtime while Japanese style byo-yomi happens to be the timesystem of choice for many kgs users.
As how the kgsGtp bridge works now is to try to tell the engine how much total time it got left. But if the move is made within one time period the total time left will not became lower and this breaks the time control function in gnugo making it think it always made the last move on 0 sec, because of this it might not lower its level even then it should and ends up loosing on time. Also early in 19x19 games the total time reported (main time + period time * periods) might be so low that gnugo lowers its strength level way down to 0 while it might be able to play the whole game on level 10.
I am not sure if this should be considered an error in the gtp specs for not including support for Japanese style byo-yomi or in the kgsGtp bridge for using the time system in the way it does or in gnugo's time control function (or in all of them) but as I know the people responsible for all 3 are reading this list I thought it would be correct place to post it.
My personal opinion is that support for other time systems then Canadian overtime should be included in the gtp specs but until is does maybe kgs should use a private extension for this.
TIA Olof Fridh