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Topic: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest (Read 4339 times) |
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arimaasen
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2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
« on: Mar 20th, 2011, 11:58am » |
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Announcing the 1st Annual Arimaa Puzzle Contest!!!
Over $300 in cash and prizes in various categories.
This is a competition to increase Arimaa educational material by creating puzzles of various kinds and levels. Whether you scour through games or create new positions, show off basic rules or highlight flashy tactics, educate beginners or surprise the masters, this is your chance to help show off the fun of playing Arimaa!
Submissions will be accepted between June 1 and Sept 1. Check out the official rules at: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/2011_Arimaa_Puzzle_Contest and start creating!
Have fun!
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omar
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Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
« Reply #1 on: Mar 21st, 2011, 10:44pm » |
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Jeff (arimaasen) contacted me about running a puzzle contest. I thought it was a great idea. I think it will get us to study Arimaa end games and discover positions that illustrate interesting concepts. Jeff has even offered to put up some prizes for the winners. We are timing it so that the winners of the puzzle contest can be announced during the next online festival.
Jeff has asked me to select some judges for the event. If anyone is interested in being a judge (and won't be entering any puzzles) please contact me to express your interest.
I would like to give a big thanks to Jeff for sponsoring this event. I think this will be a great addition to the off-season events being planned for this year.
Also if you notice anything in the rules which might need clarification, please post your feedback here.
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megajester
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Istanbul, Turkey
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Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
« Reply #2 on: Mar 22nd, 2011, 7:00am » |
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I would be very honoured to be a judge, but it depends on what kind of judge you want. As a player I'm a bit "meh" if you see what I mean. On the other hand I think I would be a good judge of how beginners would get on with them...
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Hippo
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Arimaa player #4450
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Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
« Reply #3 on: Mar 22nd, 2011, 10:38am » |
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on Mar 20th, 2011, 11:58am, arimaasen wrote:Announcing the 1st Annual Arimaa Puzzle Contest!!!
Over $300 in cash and prizes in various categories.
This is a competition to increase Arimaa educational material by creating puzzles of various kinds and levels. Whether you scour through games or create new positions, show off basic rules or highlight flashy tactics, educate beginners or surprise the masters, this is your chance to help show off the fun of playing Arimaa!
Submissions will be accepted between June 1 and Sept 1. Check out the official rules at: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/2011_Arimaa_Puzzle_Contest and start creating!
Have fun! |
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So "Find a position with the given property" is not appropriate puzzle ...  (at least ... because there is not unique solution).
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arimaasen
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Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
« Reply #4 on: Mar 22nd, 2011, 10:57am » |
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on Mar 22nd, 2011, 10:38am, Hippo wrote:
So "Find a position with the given property" is not appropriate puzzle ... (at least ... because there is not unique solution). |
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Right. While that could be a perfectly good puzzle in general (especially if you have an unusual property in mind a neat example as an answer), that's not really in the scope of this contest. Might be for later ones...and I'd love to see an example of what you're suggesting.
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mistre
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Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
« Reply #5 on: Mar 22nd, 2011, 12:45pm » |
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I'd like to throw my name into the hat to be a judge. 
Some comments/questions about the rules:
1) May I suggest that any game examples used are not already in the puzzle database here - http://arimaa.com/arimaa/twiki/bin/view/Arimaa/ArimaaPuzzles. I think it would against the nature of the contest for someone just to go to the puzzle database, find a good puzzle and submit it. Unless this is what you meant by "Previously published" in #6 and then you already have it covered.
2) I also suggest to not allow "Fantasy" puzzles. What is an impossible position? And doesn't rule #7 forbid irregular number of pieces? I just don't see the purpose of rule #8.
3) On the scoring categories - I think you put a great deal of thought into both the categories and scores. I am just wondering if clarity of objective should be worth a little more.
This is a great idea! Hopefully you will get lots of submissions.
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arimaasen
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Arimaa player #6274
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Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
« Reply #6 on: Mar 22nd, 2011, 4:18pm » |
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on Mar 22nd, 2011, 12:45pm, mistre wrote:
1) May I suggest that any game examples used are not already in the puzzle database here [...]
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My original intent was to exclude puzzles and examples already used in "Beginning Arimaa" or books that may come out in the interim. I don't want to discourage use of the puzzle database, so I think people can enter their own puzzles from the database, but shouldn't just enter things they've found there. I could spell that out explicitly, I suppose.
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2) I also suggest to not allow "Fantasy" puzzles. What is an impossible position? And doesn't rule #7 forbid irregular number of pieces? I just don't see the purpose of rule #8.
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Excellent point. My original thought was that you had to use the standard pieces and movement (i.e., can't change how pieces move or any other rules) but a "fantasy position" with more of any particular KIND of piece would be permitted. I think that this could be confusing, however, and will disallow it, as you suggest. Maybe in the future there can be refinements that allow a "fantasy" category, but for now let's keep things simple.
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3) On the scoring categories - I think you put a great deal of thought into both the categories and scores. I am just wondering if clarity of objective should be worth a little more.
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Yes, originally "clarity of objective" was worth a lot more. However, I then realized that most of the problems are likely to be straightforward (e.g., "goal in 2", "capture a piece") and will trivially get full score here. So this ends up mostly as a way to penalize vague unusual problems.
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This is a great idea! Hopefully you will get lots of submissions.
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I'm glad you like it. Hope we do, too.  Thanks for responding. I appreciate the feedback!
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jdb
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Arimaa player #214
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Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
« Reply #7 on: Mar 23rd, 2011, 7:01pm » |
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Excellent idea, should be fun.
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Isaac Grosof
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Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
« Reply #8 on: Mar 24th, 2011, 2:14am » |
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To get people in the spirit of things, here is a puzzle I composed:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/puzzles/show.cgi?p=p58
Gold to move and win in one move.
I was wondering: what difficulty level would this be, and how would it do?
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Sorry about that one thing.
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robinz
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Arimaa player #6110
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Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
« Reply #10 on: Mar 24th, 2011, 6:25am » |
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on Mar 24th, 2011, 2:14am, 722caasi wrote:
Er, I solved this without killing my own elephant (something which didn't even occur to me until I looked at the "official" solution) - you can just push the camel away rather than pull it. I think that the elephant suicide would become the only way to win in 1 if you simply added a piece (of either colour) on E5.
Nice problem all the same (it would no doubt have taken me a lot longer had I not already seen the post here which reminded me that there were ways to win without scoring a goal)
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megajester
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Istanbul, Turkey
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Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
« Reply #11 on: Mar 24th, 2011, 9:42am » |
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I think it's an excellent example of a "think outside the box" puzzle. Of course, if you say "goal in one" nobody will get it, but even if you had said "win in one" I'm not sure I would have gotten it. Intermediate, definitely.
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Hippo
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Arimaa player #4450
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Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
« Reply #13 on: Mar 24th, 2011, 3:34pm » |
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on Mar 24th, 2011, 10:54am, rbarreira wrote:
Yes that ECR/ecr one is rather complex .
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Isaac Grosof
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Re: 2011 Arimaa Puzzle Contest
« Reply #14 on: Mar 24th, 2011, 7:02pm » |
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Here's a fun puzzle:
The position is just before gold's first move, and the question is "How many moves are necessary to recreate the position?"
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Sorry about that one thing.
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