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Topic: syed (Read 2648 times) |
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mistre
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It looks like we have a challenger for the number 1 player of Arimaa - syed! At a rating of 2430, he is only 10 away from passing fritzlein.
Let's look at how syed has gained such a lofty rating:
2834 games played - this is just absurd.
2585 wins - wow impressive.
91% win percentage - again impressive.
But there must be a catch! And there is...
Games vs. Humans - 0
To me this is just incredible. You would think at some point he would break down and play a human - if not to just to see how he stacks up.
Wouldn't it be great to see syed take on fritzlein or chessandgo?
If you look at the Bots syed plays against - nearly 92% of his games have been against a P1 bot or worse. His record vs Aamira2006p2 (a 1600 rated bot) is only 15-17 and against Bomb2005p2 his record is a mediocre 11-18. He has played only 5 fast games and 0 blitz games. On top of that, on the rare occasion that he plays a P2 bot - he makes the game unrated.
So a more realistic rating for syed would be in the 1800 to 1900 range.
Still, it is impressive that he has played Arimaa bots 2834 times and shows no sign of slowing down...
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| « Last Edit: Sep 7th, 2007, 12:22pm by mistre » |
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: syed
« Reply #1 on: Sep 7th, 2007, 12:59pm » |
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Not only is 2834 games played a record for a human, it is more games than all but four bots! I'll check my database some time, but I think the only bots with more games played than syed are
ShallowBlue
Arimaazilla
Bomb2005P1
Bomb2005Blitz
and syed is just about to pass Bomb2005Blitz. That's what I call fanaticism.
As for the ratings, well, we know the system is broken. I'm actually curious to see exactly how broken the system is. Syed already has briefly been the #1-rated player, so that milestone has been reached. But can he make it all the way to 2500? How about 2600? I'm on the edge of my seat...
The other day Omar mentioned to me a possible way to get "real" ratings parallel to the current ones, without having to exclude bot games. The basic idea would be that you can't choose your opponent. Let's call it a "title rating". If you wanted to get a title rating, you would sign up for a game in the gameroom, and you would be paired with someone else (possibly a bot) who was also trying to get a title rating. The pairings algorithm would try to create relatively even games, plus a variety of games for everyone. Eventually, if your title rating got too high, the only people you could get paired against would be other humans. This is nowhere near implementation, but worth thinking about as a possible project some day.
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mistre
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Re: syed
« Reply #2 on: Sep 7th, 2007, 7:17pm » |
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How about a separate number assigned to everyone like a strength of schedule rating? Take the average rating of all the opponents you have played against. That would give a general idea of who is overrated or underrated.
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IdahoEv
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Re: syed
« Reply #3 on: Sep 7th, 2007, 10:08pm » |
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on Sep 7th, 2007, 12:59pm, Fritzlein wrote:| How about 2600? I'm on the edge of my seat... |
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It's too slow and methodical a process to generate much edge of the seat excitement, methinks.
Quote:| The basic idea... Let's call it a "title rating" ... you would sign up for a game in the gameroom, and you would be paired with someone else (possibly a bot) who was also trying to get a title rating. |
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That sounds like a lot of effort for the developer for something that very few people would use. People allow their games to be rated because it's the default. If they had to schedule special games just to have a true rating, we would have very few such rated games.
I would imagine it would be much easier to tweak the system to divert abuse than it would be to generate a new one like that.
For example, add a threshhold function to the points swapped. If the ratings aren't close enough that the higher-rated player would gain at least, say, three points from the win, then the higher-rated player cannot gain any points at all by winning.
Or, limit the number of times one can gain points from any particular opponent rated below yourself.
There are also, I think, some good long-term solutions to the general ratings inflation problem, as well, which is best thought of as an economics problem and I think is also part of what's going on here. (Because constant-performance bots are seeing increasing ratings with time). But I'll save those concepts for a separate post, because they're a bit off-topic here.
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The_Jeh
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Arimaa player #634
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Re: syed
« Reply #4 on: Sep 8th, 2007, 1:27am » |
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Go to http://www.econ.iastate.edu/prosci/moore/iahs/ then click on the Comments and Descriptions link. This site rates high school football and basketball teams in Iowa, and it does a very good job.
Is it possible we could implement something similar? Then a player's rating would not change based off each new game, but would rather be the result of a cumulative analysis of all the match-ups that have occurred. The only problem is that in Arimaa, there is not a margin of victory. There is the game length, but a longer game length does not necessarily mean a more evenly matched game.
Or I've got another idea - not for ratings but for an independent ranking system. Just apply the Schulze voting method, treating the players like voting choices, and win percentage as the preference for one player over another.
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| « Last Edit: Sep 8th, 2007, 9:39am by The_Jeh » |
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The_Jeh
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Re: syed
« Reply #5 on: Sep 8th, 2007, 2:20pm » |
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Well, he's finally got an edge on you, Fritlzlein. I guess slow and steady wins the race. You'd better go beat a few bots, and quick.
However, you still dominate p8-wise.
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| « Last Edit: Sep 8th, 2007, 2:22pm by The_Jeh » |
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: syed
« Reply #6 on: Sep 8th, 2007, 3:19pm » |
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on Sep 8th, 2007, 2:20pm, The_Jeh wrote:| You'd better go beat a few bots, and quick. |
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Been there, done that. Once I bot-bashed until I was 200 points above the second-highest rated player. I don't mind if syed has his turn now. My only regret is that chessandgo may miss his chance to have the number one rating, but since he is simultaneously World Champion and Postal Champion, he doesn't really have anything to prove.
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chessandgo
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Re: syed
« Reply #7 on: Sep 8th, 2007, 5:31pm » |
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on Sep 8th, 2007, 3:19pm, Fritzlein wrote:
My only regret is that chessandgo may miss his chance to have the number one rating |
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No worries, Karl. I am still attracted just as much as before by the #1 rating (among everyone but syed, that is), and I've been trying my best for a long time already, but you're holding it tight. I'll go on doing what I can, but I'm pretty certain you're going to stay #1 for a long time ... enjoy 
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aaaa
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Arimaa player #958
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Re: syed
« Reply #8 on: Sep 8th, 2007, 7:25pm » |
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The big question of course is whether Arifuddin is actually related to Omar, but Syed seems to be a pretty common surname.
I'm actually the anti-syed in that, having finished the ladder, I now shun rated games against bots to keep my rating pure, although I hope the low rating hasn't led to people avoiding challenging me for a game (it would probably be more due to the throwaway handle).
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: syed
« Reply #9 on: Sep 8th, 2007, 8:46pm » |
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on Sep 8th, 2007, 7:25pm, aaaa wrote:| The big question of course is whether Arifuddin is actually related to Omar |
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Yes, he is Omar's uncle.
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The_Jeh
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Arimaa player #634
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Re: syed
« Reply #10 on: Sep 8th, 2007, 11:22pm » |
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on Sep 8th, 2007, 8:46pm, Fritzlein wrote:
What an incomparable expression of family devotion.
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RonWeasley
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Harry's friend (Arimaa player #441)
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Re: syed
« Reply #11 on: Sep 9th, 2007, 6:18pm » |
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I'm not sure about this coincidence. Lockhart once introduced me to his "neice", but she didn't look related.
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Isaac Grosof
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Re: syed
« Reply #12 on: Sep 10th, 2007, 9:58pm » |
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I think there should be a separate page for top p8-wise rated players.
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Sorry about that one thing.
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mistre
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Re: syed
« Reply #13 on: Sep 11th, 2007, 8:47am » |
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There is. Just go to the Top Rated Players page and click on the link for p8 Ratings.
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Isaac Grosof
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Re: syed
« Reply #14 on: Sep 11th, 2007, 8:53am » |
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What i mean is, it should be ranked by p8 score or difference, not by the old rankings.
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Sorry about that one thing.
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