Stop it dead on 9.99.

The timer counts up, then blurs out. Lock onto the pace while you can, then finish blind and stop on 9.99. The closer you land, the higher your score.

5 rounds · one run

How 9.99 works

The timer counts up from zero in plain sight, then seals over at a random point between three and seven seconds. From there you finish blind, and stop it as close to 9.99 as you can. Five rounds make a run, and how much of the clock you get to see changes every time.

That random blur point is the whole design. You always get a calibration window and you never know how long it will last, so you can't rehearse a fixed routine. Some rounds hand you seven seconds of visible pace and a short blind finish; others cut you off at three and make you carry the last seven alone.

What a good score looks like

Inside a tenth of a second is a strong round. Inside three hundredths is excellent. A literal 9.99 exists and people do hit it, but the honest target is a run where every round lands in the same narrow band, because that is the result you can repeat tomorrow.

Three ways to get better

Spend the visible seconds locking a rhythm.Don't just watch the digits. Set a pulse against them that you can carry once they're gone. Reading the clock is not the same as internalising its pace.
Aim to arrive, not to react. There is nothing to react to: the number you want is behind a blur. Decide when 9.99 will happen and launch the stop before it, allowing for the time your hand takes.
Keep your count calibrated. If you count through the blind stretch, check your counting rate against a real clock once. A count that runs five per cent fast puts you half a second early on every single round.

The common mistake

Waiting to feel 9.99 arrive. Nothing arrives. That's the point of the blur. Players who score well have already decided where the number is and are executing a plan; players who wait for a sensation stop late, every round, by roughly the length of their own reaction time. How to improve your sense of time is the practical guide, and this is the mode it pays off in fastest.

The other four modes

Temvo is five disciplines, and “a sense of time” turns out not to be one skill. Most people are markedly better at some of these than others.

Or play all five in one run as today's daily challenge, where everyone gets the same rounds and you get a single shot at them.