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Topic: Push a rabbit to goal temporarily (Read 2567 times) |
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Cobra
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Push a rabbit to goal temporarily
« on: Aug 7th, 2009, 3:16am » |
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Tonight I was surprised to see a bot push a rabbit of mine to goal and then pull him back, without losing. Consider that you can't move your own piece onto a trap and then move another piece to guard the trap. If you follow that order, you lose the first piece. The action is instant--not taken after the whole move is completed.
So I would expect pushing a rabbit onto goal would also be instant in the same way.
Thoughts?
-Chuck
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http://chuckesterbrook.com/
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Arimabuff
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Re: Push a rabbit to goal temporarily
« Reply #1 on: Aug 7th, 2009, 3:57am » |
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That's just the way it is. Every game has its quirks. Consider the "en passant" and "sub-promotion" in Chess, not to mention the complicated set of rules about castling ( e. g. you can't castle if the king is in check in between).
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Cobra
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Re: Push a rabbit to goal temporarily
« Reply #2 on: Aug 7th, 2009, 4:04am » |
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Is it considered an essential element of the game in the way that en passant is in chess? Would Arimaa play differently?
Or is it just an accident / coincidence?
-Chuck
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http://chuckesterbrook.com/
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arimaa_master
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Re: Push a rabbit to goal temporarily
« Reply #3 on: Aug 7th, 2009, 4:18am » |
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on Aug 7th, 2009, 4:04am, Cobra wrote:Is it considered an essential element of the game in the way that en passant is in chess? Would Arimaa play differently?
Or is it just an accident / coincidence?
-Chuck
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http://chuckesterbrook.com/
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It is defined in the Rules of the game (section: "Special situations"):
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A player may push or pull the opponent's rabbit into the goal row it is trying to reach. If at the end of the turn the rabbit remains there, the player loses. However if the opponent's rabbit is moved back out of the goal row before the end of the turn, the player does not lose.
"
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Arimabuff
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Re: Push a rabbit to goal temporarily
« Reply #4 on: Aug 7th, 2009, 4:27am » |
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on Aug 7th, 2009, 4:04am, Cobra wrote:Is it considered an essential element of the game in the way that en passant is in chess? Would Arimaa play differently?
Or is it just an accident / coincidence?
-Chuck
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http://chuckesterbrook.com/
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It may not be as strategically instrumental as en passant but for one thing if we changed that rule we'd have to reprogram all the bots (and there are tons of them) and that's just too much hassle for such a rarely used rule. I may have used it a couple of times in thousands of games myself. Omar would only be asking for (big) trouble if he decided to change that rule with no sizeable benefit in return.
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Manuel
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Re: Push a rabbit to goal temporarily
« Reply #5 on: Aug 7th, 2009, 4:36am » |
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Actually, I can hardly come up with a situation where it could be advantageous, as the pushing on and off the goal takes all your steps (and your back to where you were) anyway!
It could be a way to pass the rabbit, but that can usually be done differently as well.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Push a rabbit to goal temporarily
« Reply #7 on: Aug 7th, 2009, 6:50am » |
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The rule isn't essential, but it is intuitively in keeping with other rules that the middle of your turn doesn't count, only the end. Two other examples:
1) The repetition rule does not consider positions that occur between each step. So it is legal to create a position for the third time on the way to a new position, even though it is against the rules to create a third repeat at the end of the turn.
2) Eliminating all opposing rabbits is a win even if you sacrifice your own last rabbit on the same turn. So it could be that within the turn, your last rabbit died first or second or simultaneously. It doesn't matter; if, at the end of your turn, your opponent has no rabbits, you win.
Thus the goal rule is at it is for intuitive consistency. None of these rules change game play much, but it is just easier to remember the mantra: the middle of the turn doesn't matter, only the end result.
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jdb
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Re: Push a rabbit to goal temporarily
« Reply #8 on: Aug 7th, 2009, 9:31am » |
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on Aug 7th, 2009, 6:50am, Fritzlein wrote:The rule isn't essential, but it is intuitively in keeping with other rules that the middle of your turn doesn't count, only the end. Two other examples:
1) The repetition rule does not consider positions that occur between each step. So it is legal to create a position for the third time on the way to a new position, even though it is against the rules to create a third repeat at the end of the turn.
2) Eliminating all opposing rabbits is a win even if you sacrifice your own last rabbit on the same turn. So it could be that within the turn, your last rabbit died first or second or simultaneously. It doesn't matter; if, at the end of your turn, your opponent has no rabbits, you win.
Thus the goal rule is at it is for intuitive consistency. None of these rules change game play much, but it is just easier to remember the mantra: the middle of the turn doesn't matter, only the end result. |
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Traps are cleared after every step.
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Arimabuff
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Re: Push a rabbit to goal temporarily
« Reply #9 on: Aug 7th, 2009, 11:15am » |
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on Aug 7th, 2009, 9:31am, jdb wrote:
Traps are cleared after every step.
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The traps are similar in principle to the freeze rule. A piece can be unfrozen for only one step and so can it be trapped even for one step, with the notable difference that for the latter it’s irreversible. The game would be radically changed if you could only move a piece when it is unfrozen at the start of the move.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Push a rabbit to goal temporarily
« Reply #10 on: Aug 7th, 2009, 11:33am » |
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on Aug 7th, 2009, 9:31am, jdb wrote:| Traps are cleared after every step. |
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Sure, traps are cleared after every step, and the position of the pieces changes with every step, and all of this "matters" in an obvious sense. To be clear I should have said that the middle of the turn doesn't matter for victory conditions. The three examples (rabbit temporarily on goal, repetition of position, elimination of all rabbits) all have to do with the victory condition appearing in the middle of a turn. I could add a fourth example: your opponent might be immobilized in the middle of your turn, and that doesn't cause him to lose the game either if you take another step that unfreezes one of his pieces.
I see an intuitive consistency there, but I can understand the dissonance with things that change in the middle of a turn, like being safe on a trap or being frozen. There was a rules question on BoardGameGeek along the same lines, so I guess it is natural to consider that victory status changes with every step too.
Maybe intuitions differ. And maybe it is all an accident of the algorithm. Perhaps Omar originally set up the server to check for victory only between turns, not between steps, and the rules were derived from the implementation rather than vice versa. 
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| « Last Edit: Aug 7th, 2009, 11:48am by Fritzlein » |
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Cobra
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Re: Push a rabbit to goal temporarily
« Reply #11 on: Aug 7th, 2009, 11:40am » |
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Well this has definitely been an interesting thread. I agree that this does not have a huge affect on the game, and I'm not suggesting any changes. I was just surprised when I saw it. After ~ 200 games, I don't think I had seen that before which shows how rare it is.
I was thinking: "Hey, where's my victory?" 
So in summary:
For victory conditions, the middle of the turn does not matter.
Thanks for all the clarifications.
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SpeedRazor
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Re: Push a rabbit to goal temporarily
« Reply #12 on: Aug 9th, 2009, 10:35am » |
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I've only just recently gotten my head around how rabbits have backwards powers (and now it makes sense to me), but these two other rules mentioned above seem to maybe not belong in the game.
I understand that rabbits should have the option of being sacrificed in traps, but I can't conceive of a situation where it would be advantageous to sacrifice your last rabbit on the same turn where you win the game by other means: rabbit reaches the victory line, or you eliminate your opponent's last rabbit. Can anyone come up with a scenario where sacrificing your last rabbit is logical? It's like putting your king into checkmate in chess. Intuitively, it seems to me that you must always have the suffecient potential victory condition (mating material) in hand to win: at least one rabbit remaining on the board.
There does seem to me to be a logical consequence to the notion of being able to sacrifice your last rabbit. And that is: that upon your last rabbit being eliminated, your next least valuable piece - the cat - becomes your victory condition, and all that would entail: the cats can no longer move backwards, push/pull anything. If your cats are eliminated, then the dog has the new victory conditions, et cetera... If you are allowed to sacrifice your last rabbit, than this 'ennobling' of your next piece up seems the obvious consequence (plus the penalty of not being able to move backwards).
Personally, I would rather have the option of sacrificing your last rabbit rule removed - unless there really is some useful reason for doing it.
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| « Last Edit: Aug 9th, 2009, 7:17pm by SpeedRazor » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: Push a rabbit to goal temporarily
« Reply #13 on: Aug 9th, 2009, 4:28pm » |
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on Aug 9th, 2009, 10:35am, SpeedRazor wrote:| I understand that rabbits should have the option of being sacrificed in traps, but I can't conceive of a situation where it would be advantageous to sacrifice your last rabbit on the same turn where you win the game by other means: rabbit reaches the victory line, or you eliminate your opponent's last rabbit. |
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In fact, we had to clarify the rule precisely because JDB came up with such a situation. I'm not sure if this is the same one he produced, but consider Ee6 Rf6 ef7 cg6 rd6. Gold can capture the last silver rabbit, but only by sacrificing his own last rabbit. This is why the rule matters, although I don't know of any game in which it has arisen. In fact, I can recall only one game off the top of my head in which both players were even reduced to one rabbit.
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SpeedRazor
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Re: Push a rabbit to goal temporarily
« Reply #14 on: Aug 9th, 2009, 6:30pm » |
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Hhhmmmnnnn..... What an position! Still contemplating...
Amazing position! Extra-ordinary ... are you an chess master, Fritzlein? This is so like an chess endgame, but with mutual zugzwang...
My Retrograde Analysis Intuition radar says that this position can't be reached without one (or the other) player overtly missing a win...
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| « Last Edit: Aug 9th, 2009, 6:43pm by SpeedRazor » |
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