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Topic: Silver defending forever? (Read 957 times) |
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Hirocon
Forum Senior Member
Arimaa player #4359
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Posts: 33
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Silver defending forever?
« on: Aug 19th, 2009, 9:02pm » |
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I'm fairly new to Arimaa, so this might be ridiculous, but...
It is my understanding that high-rated players are very good at not losing pieces (e.g., chessandgo vs. Fritzlein in the 2007 postal championship, where only a single piece was lost in the entire game). I also know that silver wins if the game time expires before any captures are made. Would it be a viable strategy for silver to play completely defensively, never attempting to capture or score a goal, and just wait for the game time to expire? Has any high-rated player ever tried this?
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Fritzlein
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #706
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Re: Silver defending forever?
« Reply #1 on: Aug 20th, 2009, 6:12am » |
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That's not a ridiculous question at all. On the contrary, it is one of the fundamental questions that needs to be asked about the viability of a game. You can see it was one of the first topics ever discussed in the Arimaa Forum, back in 2003: discussion thread
The primary reason purely defensive play doesn't work is that your opponent can pull out a rabbit, which you can't retreat. Once the rabbit gets stuck on the far side, your elephant becomes tied to its defense, after which the other player can use his superior elephant mobility to force a capture.
However, that still leaves some question about whether one can get a rabbit pull against the 99of9 setup without decentralizing the elephant to one's detriment. In late 2004, games between top players were gradually getting longer and longer. There weren't any draws, but nevertheless it was considered a genuine possibility that Arimaa would devolve into a draw once we became good enough.
As it turned out, however, the elephant-horse attack rejuvenated Arimaa play, and halted the lengthening game trend. The key point is that even if the elephant-horse attack doesn't succeed in sharing control of an enemy trap, the attacking horse can often retreat with a rabbit pull without necessitating the attacking elephant to decentralize. Thus the game state advances one way or another.
As a high-ranked player, I probably have had more than my share of occasions where my opponent gives up on trying to beat me, and merely tries to thwart my plans. However, I have always been able to make progress, and in practical terms it really takes the pressure off my offense to know that there is no counter-attack brewing. When the other guy is just defending, I don't have to make progress quickly, I just have to make progress eventually. And it seems that I always can.
Now, there is no telling what will happen in the future. As we get better and better at the game, play styles keep changing. It is possible that a game between two 3000-rated players might be a defensive draw. We can't know that until we have some 3000-rated players. At the moment, however, the possibility of perpetual defense looks remote. In the game you reference, where there was only one capture, there was a whole lot going on leading up to that point. Yes, no pieces were coming off the board, but nevertheless the game state was steadily drawing closer to conclusion.
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