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Topic: Continuous Tournament (Read 24014 times) |
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Continuous Tournament
« on: Jul 27th, 2008, 4:03pm » |
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Because I agitated so hard for a tournament tool, Omar has given me access to some tournament director APIs. I will have to do the pairing, scoring, and other administrivia by hand, but I will be able to tap into the World Championship tool for scheduling a mutually agreeable time across time zones, as well as the tool for creating a game and forfeiting a player that doesn't show up at the scheduled time. I'm so excited, I have decided to immediately launch a tournament to test it out.
The format will be continuous play at the pace of one game per week, just like the World Championship. Players can join or withdraw at any time by posting to this thread or e-mailing me. There is no entry fee. Pairings, results, and standings will be listed in the second post in this thread, which I will update as we go. The rules will be listed in this first post of the thread, and I will also update the rules as we go, entirely at my whim. As the benevolent tournament dictator director, I won't play in the tournament myself.
I will offer prizes to encourage serious participation at all levels. The pairing will be Swiss-like to ensure that everyone has nearly-even games, not only so that everyone can earn prize points, but also because nearly-even games are the most interesting and fun. If you win a game, your opponent the next round will be tougher, whereas if you lose, your opponent next round will be weaker.
For all players at the start of the tournament, and for late-joining players as they arrive, I will estimate the appropriate pairing flight entirely subjectively. For example, if PMertens joins late I might pair him at flight 8 of 10. If a newcomer joins late, I will probably pair him at flight zero, i.e. I will give him the easiest possible opponent. After my arbitrary seeding, a player's flight will be calculated by the formula NewFlight = 0.9 * OldFlight + (1 for win | 0 for loss). Thus if you were paired as a 3-win player this round and win, you will be paired as a 3.7-win player next round.
Players will not be paired against anyone they have played in the previous four rounds. I will increase or decrease the number of rounds to exclude repeat pairings depending on whether more or fewer players sign up.
Color assignment within each pairing will be made on the basis of games each player has played within the tournament, including forfeits. The rules are given in order of strict priority, i.e. a later rule will apply only if no prior rule distinguishes between the players.
1. Assign Gold to the player with a lower total of previous games as Gold minus previous games as Silver.
2. Assign Gold to the player with fewer previous games as Gold among games between the two players.
3. Break both color streaks.
4. Break the color streak of the player with the longer streak.
5. Swap colors with respect to the last time the two players played against each other.
6. Assign color arbitrarily.
All games will be played at a time control of 60s/5m/75/0/4h/4m.
The prize points will be as follows:
100 points for a win
X points for a non-forfeit loss where X is the number of moves in the game or 80, whichever is smaller
-100 points for a forfeit
Points can be redeemed for prizes as follows:
400 points for an Arimaa bumper sticker
2200 points for an Arimaa T-shirt
(free international shipping included; more prize choices to come)
I reserve the right to subtract any or all points from accounts of players who engage in unsporting behavior, including but not limited to playing with a duplicate account, intentionally losing a game, and intentionally not winning in order to prolong a game.
Players who forfeit will automatically be withdrawn from future rounds unless they individually post to this thread or e-mail me that they would like to rejoin. Players who give notice that they would like to withdraw before the round is paired will not lose any prize points, and their flight number will stay the same should they rejoin at a later date. Thus the tournament will accommodate players who can only play sporadically, as long as such players give advance notice every time they withdraw or rejoin.
The tournament will not be linked into Omar's system for automatic e-mail reminders, so it will be the responsibility of players to go to http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/selectTimes.cgi every week to update their available time slots. However, if players can mutually agree on a time to play, I will be able to change the automatically scheduled time to whatever time they agree on.
If a game ends due to forfeit or technical difficulties in the middle of the game, the two players involved may replay it from the start. (I originally wanted interrupted games to be resumed from the ending position only, but this is so great a hassle as to be technically infeasible.) No one is obliged to replay a game. For a game to replace the official game, it must be a rated game at the time control of sixty seconds per move, played before the end of the week, and the player who won the official game must add a comment to the replacement game saying that it should count instead of the official game.
Bots may play, but only if they are run by their developer, i.e. no home copies of Bomb.
Please be patient with any technical difficulties. The tournament director APIs are as yet untested. My email is yangfuli@yahoo.com.
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| « Last Edit: Aug 24th, 2008, 1:07pm by Fritzlein » |
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Posts: 5928
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Re: Continuous Tournament
« Reply #1 on: Jul 27th, 2008, 4:03pm » |
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The status page has been moved here. Thank you, woh, for making it pretty and easy to update!
Round 21 pairings have been set and the games have been scheduled. This is the last round until after the World Championships are over.
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| « Last Edit: Dec 21st, 2008, 9:16pm by Fritzlein » |
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camelback
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Arimaa perl monger
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Re: Continuous Tournament
« Reply #2 on: Jul 27th, 2008, 4:35pm » |
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Exciting news  Thanks for the tournament Fritz, please add me in.
I will not be available in weekends for next 5 weeks, hopefully, I finish my games during weekdays.
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: Continuous Tournament
« Reply #3 on: Jul 27th, 2008, 4:43pm » |
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on Jul 27th, 2008, 4:35pm, camelback wrote:| Exciting news Thanks for the tournament Fritz, please add me in. |
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You're in!
Quote:| I will not be available in weekends for next 5 weeks, hopefully, I finish my games during weekdays. |
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That's what the scheduling tool is for I hope you don't get really awkward times, but at a minimum you can guarantee that you don't have to play on the weekend. Plus, if there is some week where you can't even mark enough weekday slots, you can withdraw from that week before I do the pairings.
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| « Last Edit: Jul 27th, 2008, 4:46pm by Fritzlein » |
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aaaa
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Arimaa player #958
Posts: 768
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Re: Continuous Tournament
« Reply #4 on: Jul 27th, 2008, 5:10pm » |
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I'm glad this tournament is mature enough not to penalize resignations, but are you sure you want the penalty of a forfeit be worth an entire win?
[EDIT]
Removed sentence based on an oversight.
[/EDIT]
[EDIT2]
Wait a minute, let me get this straight: In a game that lasts for more than 100 moves, the loser gets more points than the winner?
[/EDIT2]
[EDIT3]
Better truncate the maximum number of points given for a loss to, say, 50 in order to discourage collusion.
[/EDIT3]
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| « Last Edit: Jul 27th, 2008, 5:20pm by aaaa » |
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: Continuous Tournament
« Reply #5 on: Jul 27th, 2008, 6:12pm » |
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I do want the penalty of a forfeit to be an entire win. Forfeits during the preliminaries of the World Championship were totally lame, and in a contest with no entry fee, they will be even lamer. People should have enough consideration for their fellow participants to withdraw on weeks when they can't play, rather than making someone go through the hassle of picking time preferences and showing up for a game only to get no game against anyone that week.
I agree that there should be a cutoff of the maximum points to the loser. Eighty sounds about right to me.
If there appears to be collusion, I will attempt to deal with the perpetrators as directly as possible. Rather than change the rules so that a long, hard-fought game is not rewarded, I would penalize the people who are not playing in sporting fashion.
Thanks for the suggestions, aaaa.
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| « Last Edit: Jul 27th, 2008, 6:17pm by Fritzlein » |
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Tuks
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Re: Continuous Tournament
« Reply #6 on: Jul 27th, 2008, 6:24pm » |
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I'm in!! 
i really hope there are some weaker players though...i don't want to be put against Omar and The_Jeh types every game 
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: Continuous Tournament
« Reply #7 on: Jul 27th, 2008, 6:48pm » |
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on Jul 27th, 2008, 6:24pm, Tuks wrote:| i really hope there are some weaker players though...i don't want to be put against Omar and The_Jeh types every game |
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Added. You can do yourself (and the tournament) a favor by telling newcomers to join. Next time you play Bilal or Hamzah, make sure they know they are welcome in the tournament and could win free prizes. Then you will have someone to beat up on.
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Tuks
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Re: Continuous Tournament
« Reply #8 on: Jul 27th, 2008, 7:13pm » |
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great idea! 
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aaaa
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Arimaa player #958
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Re: Continuous Tournament
« Reply #9 on: Jul 27th, 2008, 7:15pm » |
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on Jul 27th, 2008, 6:12pm, Fritzlein wrote:| Rather than change the rules so that a long, hard-fought game is not rewarded, I would penalize the people who are not playing in sporting fashion. |
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But conversely, the current setup discriminates against those whose playing styles tend to cause games to last only a relatively few moves, so that the ostensibly proper goal of maximizing one's chances of a win does not completely coincide with that of maximizing the expected number of points gained from playing a game.
And since it's also hard to draw the line between outright colluding and those about to win being a little bit generous in conceding some more moves and consequent points to their opponents, I think you should make the whole scheme a little more zero-sum like by not just encouraging players to lose slow, but also to win fast, i.e. having the points given for a win be calculated by subtracting the number of moves from a given point total, also having a cutoff of course, this time in the other direction.
Does one also get points if the opponent forfeited?
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: Continuous Tournament
« Reply #10 on: Jul 27th, 2008, 8:17pm » |
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Yes, the winner gets prize points even if the loser forfeits.
It's true that rewarding slow losses discriminates against wild attacking players, but having a zero-sum award of points where the winner gets less for winning slowly would discriminate against plodding, methodical players like myself who tend to win slowly. The only way for the points award to provide no discrimination relative to the game per se is to have the winner and loser each get a fixed number of points. I'm open to that if necessary, but I think the scoring as is will be fine.
I don't see discrimination as a big problem in a contest where everyone plays for free and can win free prizes. The bigger issue is when the leading player intentionally prolongs the game, which I don't expect to happen, and which I think can be addressed if it arises. It is not so simple to appear to be trying to win while in reality avoiding it. You watch the games, and let me know if you were right to be worried about it.
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| « Last Edit: Jul 27th, 2008, 8:27pm by Fritzlein » |
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99of9
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Re: Continuous Tournament
« Reply #11 on: Jul 27th, 2008, 8:17pm » |
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If we're in need of weaker players, I'll consider entering gnobot.
For those who've done it before, how does a bot go about using the scheduling tool? Is it possible for me to log into the gameroom using my bot's username?
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Posts: 5928
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Re: Continuous Tournament
« Reply #12 on: Jul 27th, 2008, 8:25pm » |
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on Jul 27th, 2008, 8:17pm, 99of9 wrote:| If we're in need of weaker players, I'll consider entering gnobot. |
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Oh, please do enter Gnobot! Sorry I don't know how to log in to the game room as a bot, but if Gnobot is playing and you are not, I could use your time preferences instead of the bot's for scheduling. If both of you enter as players (which would be extra, super great), and you don't want to have identical preferences as your bot, then we'll have to figure out how to get Gnobot's preferences entered independently.
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aaaa
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Arimaa player #958
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Re: Continuous Tournament
« Reply #13 on: Jul 27th, 2008, 8:26pm » |
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When a game is replayed on the players' own initiative, will it still count if it's accidentally unrated?
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Posts: 5928
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Re: Continuous Tournament
« Reply #14 on: Jul 27th, 2008, 8:29pm » |
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on Jul 27th, 2008, 8:26pm, aaaa wrote:| When a game is replayed on the players' own initiative, will it still count if it's accidentally unrated? |
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I would prefer all tournament games to be rated. I think if the game is accidentally unrated we could still count it as long as both players post comments saying that is the game they want to count, but if "accidents" keep happening we can make it a rule that the replay must be rated to count.
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