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supersamu
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Announcing the human Ladder
« on: Oct 30th, 2014, 10:53pm » |
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I hereby announce the human Ladder, a monthly tournament where players play in groups of 4 to determine who climbs the ladder and who will have to be demoted at the end of the month.
The start date is 12/1/2014
You can register by sending me a message via the forum messaging system. Any other form of communication will also be noticed, but the forum messaging system will guarantee that I remember to put you in. I will update the wiki page continuosly to show who is registered.
The list of participants is at the rules wiki page:
arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/Human_Ladder_Rules
The rules at the wiki page take precedent over the concepts in this Forum post.
The Idea
The Free Weekend Tournaments and their success inspired me to come up with a Tournament idea myself. One downside with the WT's is that the organizator has to be present at the same time as the players and the time window for games is rather small.
My idea is to spread out the games over the month and let the players schedule their games, similarly to the WC scheduling.
The players will be in groups of 4 and at the end of each month, the winner of each group advances to the next higher group, and the first eliminated player from each group drops down one spot.
The Format
Each group of 4 will play a double-elimination tournament with random seeding, whereby the randomization will be done via the closing price of the Dow Jones Industrial average on a specified date, a publically accessable, but impossible to manipulate method. The randomization exists to avoid repeat pairings.
The color assignment is done in the same way.
The first round the pairings are purely random, in the second round, the two winners and the two losers of the first match play each other.
In the third round, the two players with one loss each face each other while the player without a loss gets a bye. In the fourth and (if required) fifth round the two remaining players play until one has suffered two losses total.
The time control will be 45s/3m30s/100/0/3h/3m30s for all rounds, except for the match between the last two players, where the time control will be 30s/3m/100/0/2h/3m.
Scheduling
The five rounds of each group will be scheduled as follows:
(Day of the Month) / Action
1 18:00 UTC / Deadline for Submission of game time preferences
1 20:00 UTC / Announcement of scheduled game times
3 01:00 UTC / Start time of the scheduling window (first game could start here)
7 23:00 UTC / End time of the scheduling window (last game could start at this time)
This repeats with exactly 7 days between each equal action until
28 23:00 UTC / End time of the scheduling window (last match could start at this time)
If you have been observant you noticed that there are only 4 scheduling rounds, but there are supposed to be 5 rounds in each month.
This is because the match between the last two players will be played in one sitting, so the second game between them (if there is need for one) will start directly after the first one finished.
This is also the reason why the games have a shorter time control.
The Rules
I will create a Wiki Page with the rules soon, once I started it, I will link to it from here.
Additional notes:
- Scheduling will be done manually by me, as long as there is no way to do it automatically. The plan right now is that players send me their schedule as forum message, and I will send the players their game time.
The same system as in the scheduling for the WC will be used, whereby you have 120 slots (each game starts at a full hour) and you put preferences on at least 61 of these by assigning a number between 1 and 5 to each slot. The algorithm then searches for the least inconvenient time slot.
- Should the number of participants not be divisible by 4, the bottom two groups will be the only non 4-player groups, with the higher ranked group having at least as many players in it as the lower one. A different format will be required, I am open for input here.
- I am planning to participate as well and will send out a hash of my schedule well before my opponent sends out his schedule.
- The initial assignment to groups will be done by WHRH, any players after that will be added to the lowest group possible.
I am open for any feedback and questions about the format. Although it is unlikely that I will change the core of the rules, I will consider slight changes to the timecontrol and scheduling process.
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| « Last Edit: Nov 29th, 2014, 3:41pm by supersamu » |
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deep_blue
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Re: Announcing the human Ladder
« Reply #1 on: Oct 31st, 2014, 5:48am » |
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Sounds like a great idea. I would suggest bigger leagues and therefore a longer "season" but that's your choice of course. Shorter time control for the final two rounds makes sense but in the "pre-final" rounds would a higher reserve be possible? (which btw. is also helpful against the lag problem)
In chess cup games you have the possibility of just deciding together with your oponent when you want to play. This could work when people try to be in the chatroom shortly after you published the pairings.
I don't know if this here would make sense since participation will probably be too low:
In French chess league they had a nice idea of two groups per league. Before the season it'll be seeded randomly in which of those groups you are. This prevents that you always get the same oponents who stay in your group or go up and then immediately down again.
With this changes or without, I am in. 
EDIT: My two group per league system would mean that 2 will go down from the top group (since there should be only one first league) which would mean that the top group maybe should have 6 players. Alternatively there could be a playoff between the two winners of "2nd league groups" (which could be blitz to save time).
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| « Last Edit: Oct 31st, 2014, 11:14am by deep_blue » |
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harvestsnow
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Re: Announcing the human Ladder
« Reply #2 on: Oct 31st, 2014, 12:23pm » |
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Yay for the meat ladder!
What happens when someone takes a month off?
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supersamu
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Re: Announcing the human Ladder
« Reply #3 on: Nov 3rd, 2014, 4:22pm » |
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I would suggest bigger leagues and therefore a longer "season" but that's your choice of course.
I chose such a small league size to ensure closer competition in each individual league. Because of the same reason, two groups per league will not be a good idea just yet, I fear.
Shorter time control for the final two rounds makes sense but in the "pre-final" rounds would a higher reserve be possible?
I chose the standard timecontrols simply because that is very easy to setup for the players.
In chess cup games you have the possibility of just deciding together with your oponent when you want to play. This could work when people try to be in the chatroom shortly after you published the pairings.
I would be very happy if players arrange their games on their own, but sometimes that can be a bit complicated. I will leave the players that freedom, but they will have to agree on their game time before the deadline for submission of game time preferences to ensure that the tournament runs smoothly.
What happens when someone takes a month off?
The players can pause their participation as long as they wish, and they will have as close as a difference in rank from the bottom of the whole tournament as possible, but they will never be closer to the top position after they rejoin.
(Example:
12 players in league, player in place #8 drops out, joins when
-10 players remain: still #8
-15 players are active: now #11 )
If anyone is curious how to join the tournament, you do so by sending a message via the forum and I will update the wiki page on the human ladder once I received your message. Registration ends on 11/29/2014, exact specifications to follow in the rules. (The wiki page doesn't exist yet, it is harder than I imagined to write rules for an event)
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| « Last Edit: Nov 4th, 2014, 10:42am by supersamu » |
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chessandgo
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Re: Announcing the human Ladder
« Reply #4 on: Nov 11th, 2014, 4:08pm » |
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on Oct 30th, 2014, 10:53pm, supersamu wrote:| whereby the randomization will be done via the closing price of the Dow Jones Industrial average on a specified date, a publically accessable, but impossible to manipulate method. |
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*phones broker*
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supersamu
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Re: Announcing the human Ladder
« Reply #5 on: Nov 12th, 2014, 9:11pm » |
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The rules are now posted:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/Human_Ladder_Rules
I am not sure what to do with 3 players in a group. It is difficult to determine anything fair with so few rounds. Any suggestions?
With 2 players, I think they simply play a best of 5 with the last two games being played on the same day.
The rules for color assignment are extremely wonky, I know. But I couldn't come up with anything else that doesn't rely on human interference.
I want the tournament to be more casual, so I don't know if we need the games to be event games. If the games would be event games, there would have to be someone present that can watch the game and jump in if help is needed.
This is also the reason why I don't want any prize money involved at the moment.
I also don't know if I can use the automated Arimaa scheduling to schedule the games. Right now the system is that you would need to message me with the message containing 119 digits for the 119 slots. ( Previously the number of slots was 120, but I realized my mistake).
If something is unclear in the rules, you can write it in the discussion of the wiki page or here in the thread.
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supersamu
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Re: Announcing the human Ladder
« Reply #6 on: Dec 23rd, 2014, 1:50pm » |
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Rule Changes:
These are some suggested Rule changes I heard from participants and non-participants I agree with and will implement and write out in the rules soon. I also added some rule changes that will make it easier for me, but should not change much for the Players.
- Time Schedule change:
Each Round will begin on a Monday now, so that the Scheduling is easier to do for the players and they will always be able to play on the weekend. The first round of the month will start on the first Monday of the month.
(Monday 18:00 UTC will be the deadline to submit time preferences and so on)
- There is no need to publically agree on a game time before playing the Human Ladder game. The first game with the correct time control after announcement of pairings counts towards the human ladder.
Note that if you don't publically agree on a game time, your opponent may not show up and you have no grounds to claim his forfeit as a win.
But you can also simply start playing when you both are online at the same time. This also means that even if your game is scheduled for a certain time, you can play it anytime before that if you want to. But the game still has to be played before that time.
- Better wording in the color assignment paragraph
(Nobody reads that anyways  )
- New Players who want to join the Human Ladder are not placed at the bottom anymore, they are placed one group lower than the next lower-rated player in WHRH in the Human Ladder at the time when they join. This should prevent good Players having too easy of a time in the lower groups while also not giving them too good of a starting group.
I am open for feedback and criticism, as always.
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harvestsnow
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Re: Announcing the human Ladder
« Reply #7 on: Dec 24th, 2014, 10:48pm » |
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Come to think of it, having the rounds started on Monday will take the Sunday evening from people living in western time zones (mostly the Americas). Maybe Tuesday would be better?
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deep_blue
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Re: Announcing the human Ladder
« Reply #8 on: Dec 25th, 2014, 4:00pm » |
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I guess it's meant as start day of the ladder itself;
So ladder starts at first Monday which not necessarily is the first of the month (although it was this month so we didn't notice the difference). So on Monday you do your time slots, not necessarily the first.
Not sure about this though.
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harvestsnow
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Re: Announcing the human Ladder
« Reply #9 on: Dec 26th, 2014, 7:13am » |
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on Dec 25th, 2014, 4:00pm, deep_blue wrote:I guess it's meant as start day of the ladder itself;
So ladder starts at first Monday which not necessarily is the first of the month (although it was this month so we didn't notice the difference). So on Monday you do your time slots, not necessarily the first.
Not sure about this though. |
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Yes, this is what it's about.
With this system, the scheduling window ends on Sunday 23:00 UTC, ie. 15:00 in Los Angeles and 12:00 in Niue. Could it be extended so that everyone can use the full Sunday?
Other questions:
Quote:| The first game with the correct time control after announcement of pairings counts towards the human ladder. |
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With this rule, what happens to the double final games? Will the first two 30s games count for the ladder, or do they still have to be played in one sitting?
Can the players decide that a game shouldn't count, for whatever reason? Is there a difference between rated and unrated games in this regard?
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harvestsnow
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Re: Announcing the human Ladder
« Reply #10 on: Jan 19th, 2015, 8:00pm » |
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The repeated forfeits make me wonder if some players expect an email from the organizer. As things stands, the only way to get the pairing information is to follow the forum or the wiki. supersamu isn't even supposed to have mail addresses.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 19th, 2015, 9:29pm by harvestsnow » |
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supersamu
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Re: Announcing the human Ladder
« Reply #11 on: Jan 26th, 2015, 9:54am » |
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on Dec 26th, 2014, 7:13am, harvestsnow wrote:
With this system, the scheduling window ends on Sunday 23:00 UTC, ie. 15:00 in Los Angeles and 12:00 in Niue. Could it be extended so that everyone can use the full Sunday?
Other questions:
With this rule, what happens to the double final games? Will the first two 30s games count for the ladder, or do they still have to be played in one sitting?
Can the players decide that a game shouldn't count, for whatever reason? Is there a difference between rated and unrated games in this regard?
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The times games can be played are now Wednesday 01:00 UTC until Monday 11:00 UTC.
If the time for the 30s-game is scheduled via my scheduler, the games should be played in one sitting. I don't mind if players split the games up when they play whenever they have time.
I will add in the rules that only games that started as rated games count towards the Human Ladder, so you can play unrated games with whom you want. But if you unrate a game after a timeout, it will still count towards the Human Ladder.
One other change:
I now have set up some spreadsheets via google drive that should make it easier for me to schedule the games. Everyone will receive a message via the forumwith a link to his personal spreadsheet where he can type in his preferences. I will also use the same preferences again, even if they haven't changed from last week. Previously I had the intention that participants send me new preferences each week.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 26th, 2015, 9:58am by supersamu » |
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