Arimaa Challenge 2004

Background

Arimaa is a new chess-like strategic board game invented by Omar and Aamir Syed. The game differs from chess in (among others) the following two ways.
  1. A variable opening position: players are free to choose the place of the pieces within the first two rows of the board.
  2. Complex moves: each move consists of 4 piece-movements that not only include shifts or captures, but also pulling, pushing and immobilization of opponent pieces.

In order to stimulate AI-research, the inventors of Arimaa called out the Arimaa Challenge: to the first person, company or organization that builds a program that defeats a chosen human Arimaa player in an official Arimaa challenge match before 2020, a prize of $ 10.000 USD will be awarded.

Each year a match will be organized. The match consists of two parts: first a selection match will be played between computer programs to select the best computer program, then the best program plays a match against a chosen human Arimaa player. The first challenge will take place in January and February 2004 in co-operation with ICGA. ICGA will oversee the selection of the best program and the challenge match. It will act as arbiter in case of dispute.

For more information on Arimaa see www.arimaa.com, for details on the 2004 challenge see arimaa.com/arimaa/challenge/2004/.

Participants

The first challenge match is between the following three programs that have been selected by the Arimaa organization on base of their ratings as obtained in the Arimaa game room:

NameAuthorCountryRating
BombDavid FotlandUnited States1763
OccamDon DaileyUnited States1517
GnoBotToby HudsonUnited Kingdom1491

Schedule of the selection match

From January 7 to 25, the selection match will be played between the three participating programs. One match will be played per day, starting on 8 am, GMT. The games can be observed online in the Arimaa game room. The results of the matches and the game logs will be available on this web page.

DateGoldSilver
Jan 7 GnoBot Occam
Jan 12 Bomb GnoBot
Jan 13 Occam Bomb
Jan 14 Occam GnoBot
Jan 15 Gnobot Bomb
Jan 16 Bomb Occam

Schedule of the challenge match

The challenge match will take place from 2 till 13 February 2004. The human player will be anounced on this web page as soon as the winner of the selection match is known.