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Topic: 2007 Computer Championship (Read 3004 times) |
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IdahoEv
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2007 Computer Championship
« on: Jan 8th, 2007, 2:36pm » |
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The first games were held this morning, but_Aamira vs bot_Loc, and bot_Bomb2005CC vs. bot_GnoBot.
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wcc/2007/showGames.cgi
I'm uncertain which bots have seen new development this year. Clearly Bomb and Occam are retreads. Faerie and Zombie are new. GnoBot is an unfinished new version still in development, 99 entered it rather than the 2006 version for variety's sake. If anyone wants to pipe in with the development status of Aamira, Loc, and Clueless, I'm sure we'd be interested.
ROUND 1 - first two games.
Aamira* vs. Loc Aamira defeated Loc with an aggressive flooding approach (Aamira had advanced 7 of its rabbits by turn 8, for example). It took early control of one of Loc's traps, then traded off trap control, gaining the advantage in early material trades. Loc responded with a successful frame of Aamira's camel (this may be the only camel frame I've ever seen!) and some nearly successful goal threats, but Aamira managed to just barely defend the threats and sneak a goal through one step ahead of Loc.
GnoBot vs Bomb* In the second game, Gnobot attacked Bomb early with an E-H attack, but allowed the H to be taken hostage by Bomb's camel. Gnobby followed that up with an unsupported camel attack on Bomb's other trap, resulting in a quick camel hostage. With the elephant split, GnoBot lost the horse on 16w. After an apparent horse blunder on 19b (unsupported trap attack leading immediately to capture on 20w), GnoBot's position rapidly deteriorated.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 8th, 2007, 10:59pm by IdahoEv » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #1 on: Jan 8th, 2007, 10:44pm » |
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Hey, it is fun to read game summaries when someone else writes them. Keep up the good work!
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IdahoEv
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #2 on: Jan 8th, 2007, 10:49pm » |
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second two games:
Faerie* vs. clueless Clueless began the match with its camel on the back row. This cost it significantly when Faerie managed to pull both of clueless' horses and then attack a trap with M-D-R while holding a horse hostage with E. With clueless' camel too marginalized to be effective within the event horizon, the ensuing scramble led to a regular loss of clueless' material. In the end, Faerie goaled on turn 38 without having lost a piece.
Occam vs. Zombie* Occam got into trouble quickly with an advanced H and an elephant blocked from centralizing. Zombie's camel took control of the H, killing it a few turns later. After that, attempts to attack Zombie's home traps resulted in a camel hostage and an MH counterattack that gave Zombie fairly solid control over three traps for the remainder of the game. Zombie used this to slowly eliminate Occam's material, eventually winning a protracted one-rabbit endgame without having lost a piece.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 8th, 2007, 11:01pm by IdahoEv » |
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omar
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #3 on: Jan 9th, 2007, 8:05am » |
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Great coverage of the games Evan. Thanks for posting this.
Karl noted to Ned and I that the ratings being used in the tournament are not Dec 31st ratings but rather from Jan 7th. He also noted that the seeding won't make much of a difference since we are using triple-elimination and there won't be any byes for the first three rounds.
I looked into it and found that even though I had taken a snapshot of the ratings on Jan 1st they were overwritten when I ran the pairing for the first round on Dec 7th. A technical error on my part. I've changed the program so that this does not happen again next year.
Ned emailed me saying that since the ratings are some what arbitrary we should make a note of it and continue the rest of the tournament using this set of ratings.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 9th, 2007, 8:06am by omar » |
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omar
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #4 on: Jan 9th, 2007, 8:13am » |
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When I ran the pairing program for round 2 it set one of
the games as:
bot_Aamira vs bot_Zombie
but since Aamira played gold and Zombie played silver in round one I thought it made more sense to have the pairing be:
bot_Zombie vs bot_Aamira
I've setup the game this way and notified Ned about it.
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RonWeasley
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #5 on: Jan 9th, 2007, 8:59am » |
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Color re-assignment for Zombie vs. Aamira approved.
The pairing program is, after all, a tool to help the coordinator achieve the pairing objectives stated in the rules. If humans can do better, we take the better pairing and try to fix the pairing program.
Tournament Director
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IdahoEv
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Round II Report
« Reply #6 on: Jan 10th, 2007, 5:12pm » |
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Round II Standings:
| Bomb | 2-0 | | Zombie | 2-0 | | Clueless | 1-1 | | Loc | 1-1 | | Aamira | 1-1 | | Faerie | 1-1 | | GnoBot | 0-2 | | Occam | 0-2 |
Round II Games report: (click the heading to open game viewer)
Zombie* vs. Aamira
I'm not at all sure how to describe this game, and I understand almost nothing that happened in the mid-game. It began with Zombie driving its E behind one of Aamira's traps by turn 3. This, combined with Aamira's tendency to advance several officers early, generally scrambled Aamira's line. This quickly evolved into a very complex tactical situation that I admit I simply could not understand. In several cases one or both bots skipped taking an obvious capture for reasons I could not fathom. Zombie attacked one of Aamira's traps while leaving its own camel to defend a trap attacked by silver's EM combination for reasons I can't comprehend. In the end, Zombie used a rabbit that had been pulled by Aamira to launch a goal race against a material race, but Zombie's search could not have seen the outcome of the goal race - it began the attack fourteen ply in advance of the game end. Aamira's heavy advance of officers had left its home relatively undefended. Giving up its camel in the process, Zombie goaled on turn 21.
Bomb* vs. Faerie
Faerie failed to defend to an EH attack on turn 5w, giving Bomb a free cat and a rabbit in the opening. In the midgame, Bomb captured a camel hostage which Faerie attempted to unfreeze by advancing rabbits on the west flank. Here, Bomb's greater search depth prevailed in a 4-ply tactical situation. Bomb allowed Faerie to unfreeze the camel, capture a dog, and take control of the c3 trap ... in turn setting Faerie's elephant up to be decentralized and unable to defend the subsequent threat to Faerie's camel. This led to the capture of a cat (pushed forward to prevent the camel capture), which weakened Faerie's defense on the east flank enough to push a rabbit through to goal on 28w.
GnoBot vs. Clueless*
An initial DLE opening led to a threat on one of GnoBot's dogs. Gnobby defended the dog by sacrificing a rabbit rather than positioning its E next to the trap, possibly because it had clueless' camel pinned to the wall on row 8 and didn't want to sacrifice that position. However, that choice led quickly to a barricade of Gnobby's phant and a hostage of the dog. Clueless, however, was unable to capitalize on the situation for quite a while; with its camel pinned to the back wall and its elephant involved in the blockade, it was unable to rotate out or activate any powerful pieces. Gnobby's free camel could have dominated the board, but instead it was played conservatively, stalemating the game for about 30 turns. During the long period of mostly null maneuvering, GnoBot periodically allowed clueless to capture dogs or tighten the blockade, eventually trapping both horses inside the blockade and leaving GnoBot with very little free material. Finally, Clueless abandoned the blockade with its elephant, capturing one cat while GnoBot suicided the other. (?) Bomb goaled two turns later, on 45b.
Loc* vs. Occam
Occam responded to an initial rabbit pull by rushing forward with emhr. Surprisingly, it managed to keep its camel out of the way of Loc's phant, bringing up another rabbit to take shared control of bot Loc's traps and launch apparent goal threats by turn 10! However, since no material had been lost, Loc's defense was too solid to allow any threats through, even after Occam took total control of the f3 trap. Occam began piling up rabbits on rank 2, defended by a solid sheet of cats and rabbits, preventing any capture of the defending rabbits. Eventually, the continuing pileup of offensive rabbits by Occam stalemated the offense but left Occam's few officers at the home traps completely vulnerable to marauding by Loc's M and E. The ensuing scramble for position left Occam's defense too thin, and Loc sneaked through a rabbit goal on 25w, only one tactical capture having been made. (Occam suicided two pieces in death throes the turn before goal).
Edited: added links to the games.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 11th, 2007, 3:02am by IdahoEv » |
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jdb
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #7 on: Jan 10th, 2007, 9:18pm » |
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Thanks for the great commentary. Keep up the good work!
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IdahoEv
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #8 on: Jan 11th, 2007, 3:05am » |
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on Jan 8th, 2007, 10:44pm, Fritzlein wrote:| Hey, it is fun to read game summaries when someone else writes them. Keep up the good work! |
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on Jan 9th, 2007, 8:05am, omar wrote:| Great coverage of the games Evan. Thanks for posting this. |
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on Jan 10th, 2007, 9:18pm, jdb wrote:| Thanks for the great commentary. Keep up the good work! |
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Thanks for the support, guys. After all of Karl's labor work reporting on the WC, I felt someone ought to do the same for the CC, even if bots don't quite generate the same degree of excitement. 
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chessandgo
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #9 on: Jan 11th, 2007, 3:11am » |
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on Jan 11th, 2007, 3:05am, IdahoEv wrote:
Thanks for the support, guys. After all of Karl's labor work reporting on the WC, I felt someone ought to do the same for the CC, even if bots don't quite generate the same degree of excitement. |
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I don't know if they're exciting or not, but you sure make them so  Thanks !
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RonWeasley
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #10 on: Jan 11th, 2007, 7:07am » |
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This commentary is much better than the Daily Prophet. Rita Skeeter writes, "Aamira reflected on its dead relationship to Zombie. Gnobot would ever be so Clueless as to Bomb the good Faerie. Loc what happened to Occam." I don't think she's ever been to a game.
Thanx, IdahoEv.
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99of9
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #11 on: Jan 12th, 2007, 6:40pm » |
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I know it hasn't mattered yet, and hopefully won't from now on, but...
Omar, could you schedule the games 8 hours apart so they cannot possibly interfere with each other's server load?
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omar
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #12 on: Jan 12th, 2007, 11:32pm » |
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on Jan 12th, 2007, 6:40pm, 99of9 wrote:I know it hasn't mattered yet, and hopefully won't from now on, but...
Omar, could you schedule the games 8 hours apart so they cannot possibly interfere with each other's server load? |
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I try to keep an eye on the games and can push back the start time of the other games if one is going for too long.
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omar
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #13 on: Jan 12th, 2007, 11:45pm » |
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on Jan 11th, 2007, 3:05am, IdahoEv wrote:
Thanks for the support, guys. After all of Karl's labor work reporting on the WC, I felt someone ought to do the same for the CC, even if bots don't quite generate the same degree of excitement. |
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Hey Evan, I think you should be listed as the official event reported for the WCC. I've updated the WCC page:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wcc/2007/
Thanks again for the great coverage.
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99of9
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Re: 2007 Computer Championship
« Reply #14 on: Jan 12th, 2007, 11:49pm » |
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on Jan 12th, 2007, 11:32pm, omar wrote:I try to keep an eye on the games and can push back the start time of the other games if one is going for too long.
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Ah ok, I'm glad you're on top of this. I just got worried when gnobby and occam were undoing each other's moves.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 12th, 2007, 11:49pm by 99of9 » |
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